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COY WIRE: What's up, everyone?
Thank you for making us part of your day.
I'm Coy Wire.
This is "CNN 10," and we have an awesome show for you.
But we do have to start with the latest news out of Puerto Rico,
where a catastrophic hurricane devastated the island.
Hurricane Fiona caused terrible rains,
floods, mudslides, and blackouts after it
hit the region on Monday.
The National Guard and emergency responders
have rescued over 1,000 people, but
certain parts of Puerto Rico are difficult for crews to get to.
When we recorded our show Tuesday, two people had died.
The storm also hit the Dominican Republic,
where a million people are without running water.
As of Tuesday, Fiona had strengthened into a Category 3
hurricane as it neared Turks and Caicos Islands, where
residents were bracing for potentially life-threatening
flash flooding.
Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico
nearly five years to the day after the area was
devastated by Hurricane Maria.
That storm caused thousands of deaths, left
billions of in damage, and some residents
are still trying to rebuild.
Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States
and are entitled to the same federal assistance
as every state.
President Biden promised immediate federal aid
and assistance toward the relief effort,
and his administration is likely to offer
long term support as the area rebuilds now from both storms.
The Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June until November,
and so far this year, it's been relatively mild.
Fiona is considered the first major hurricane of the season.
LEYLA SANTIAGO: Almost the entire island of Puerto Rico
remains in the dark after Hurricane Fiona slammed
into the southwestern coast of the island Sunday
afternoon, pounding rainfall causing catastrophic mudslides
and flooding.
The storm coming just as parts of the island
were finally recovering from Hurricane Maria's
destruction five years ago.
JUAN MIGUEL GONZALEZ: It's been rough.
We've been just working to get back this neighborhood,
get it back from Maria.
Everything was destroyed.
Restaurants, the houses, everything was destroyed.
We're just-- not all the way back,
but we're just half way back.
A lot of people, more than Maria, lost their houses now,
lost everything on their houses because they're floating.
LEYLA SANTIAGO: This is the barrio, the neighborhood where
the National Guard had to come and rescue people,
still a lot of flooding.
I can hear generators powering the home,
and it is still pouring down with rain.
Neighbors looking out, wondering exactly what will come next
as Hurricane Fiona, the remnants of it,
continue to demolish this area.
The family rescued overnight, now safely in a shelter.
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LEYLA SANTIAGO: She says this was worse than Maria.
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LEYLA SANTIAGO: She's pointing out that they've already
been underwater for 24 hours, and the rain
is still coming down.
So she's concerned about the 2,500 families
that she says are impacted by this here.
About a thousand people rescued from floodwaters, hundreds more
rescue efforts still underway as emergency
responders try to navigate through difficult to reach
areas.
In Duela, the interior part of the island, 25-year-old Leomar
Rodriguez watched this bridge come apart in just minutes
and washed down the river.
On the west side of the island, rainfall
swelling the Guanajibo River in Hormigueros,
surpassing its previous record height at 28.59 feet, set
during Hurricane Maria, now gauging to over 29 feet,
the National Weather Service said.
While a few hospitals have regained power,
emergency workers are racing to get
electricity back to the island.
- It takes them so long to get things back up because so many
of the systems are connected.
And some of the main lines go through the hills there,
and if those main lines get damaged,
they don't have the ability to get the other sections up
and running.
LEYLA SANTIAGO: Sunday morning, President Joe Biden approving
an emergency declaration for Puerto
Rico that authorizes all emergency measures needed,
including FEMA.
ANNE BINK: There's 300 responders on the ground
from FEMA, working hand in glove with the Commonwealth and their
emergency management structure.
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COY WIRE: 10-second trivia, where
can you find the original copy of the US Constitution?
The National Archives, Fort Knox, the Library of Congress,
or the Smithsonian Institution?
The answer is the National Archives
Museum in Washington, DC.
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Next up today, students are back in school,
and New Jersey teacher Larry Abrams
is on a mission to transform the lives
of students across the state with his organization,
BookSmiles.
The self-proclaimed bookworm believes that every student
should have access to the transformative power
of books, regardless of their school's resources.
The organization harvests, collects, sorts,
and hands out hundreds of thousands of gently
used children's books in areas that Abrams calls book deserts.
Let's hear more about the nearly 1
million books this organization has distributed.
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LARRY ABRAMS: "In the great forest,
a little elephant is born.
His name is Babar."
I've always been a bookworm.
My favorite, "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel."
I was a library kid.
Books were my friends.
Now this is my all-time favorite.
He used his imagination to create anything he wanted.
I certainly like the transformative experience
of reading, of going into other worlds,
experiencing other cultures.
I am a high school English teacher.
Where I currently teach, it's an incredible district
with really, really talented kids,
but it's a scrappy, working-class town.
There is poverty.
We have a high ESL population.
So many of the kids are on free and reduced lunch.
They're reading skills aren't where they should be,
by and large.
In my ninth grade class, it's very typical
to have kids reading at a fifth grade reading level.
And if you're struggling with reading,
you're going to be struggling with writing.
I'd heard of food deserts, but I'd
never heard of book deserts.
And it occurred to me that I teach in a book desert.
I decided to put out a call to all of my friends.
Hey, I'm collecting baby board books.
A thousand books avalanched into my lap.
I had more books than I knew what to do with.
And I gave books away, and I just saw the joy
in these children's faces.
And then, I got obsessed, and I then
filled my classroom with books.
And then my garage was filled with books.
But then, it got to the point where it simply
wasn't sustainable, and that's when
we got a nice donation to be able to move
into the book bank.
One teacher donated, and we're going
to pass it along to other teachers who need it.
We've outgrown our space, and we are now
in the process of moving into 4,300 square feet
in a nearby town.
The name of my organization is BookSmiles.
BookSmiles harvests, collects, sorts,
and distributes hundreds of thousands
of gently used children's books.
What we do is irrigate book deserts.
Very good stuff, this was a great haul.
We work to level that playing field.
Why shouldn't every child have plenty of books in their home?
We get donations from kind-hearted people,
book people, people who believe every child should
have a library of their own.
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I came up with the idea to paint trash cans to make them weather
resistant, and that's the lure, that's
the bait for people to come with their book donations
and drop them in.
I am proud to say that we have distributed
nearly 1 million books.
Books spread light.
They spread joy.
And that's why it's important for me
to keep this thing going, because one
light will light another light.
And hopefully, other people in America
will start seeing that this is not rocket science, folks.
This is just reclaiming used books
and thinking of an efficient way to get them into the hands
of children in need.
We are just hitting the tip of this iceberg.
There is so much work to do.
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COY WIRE: For today's 10 out of 10,
we're talking some bling-bling.
Scientists discovered a mysterious diamond
that came from outer space.
The stone called lonsdaleite came here on a meteorite.
It's harder and stronger than a regular diamond,
and the natural process through which scientists believe
it was formed could inspire a way to manufacture
super-durable materials.
Now the question remains whether they can replicate
the diamond here on Earth.
One thing that can't be replicated, you.
Did you know that today is World Gratitude Day?
And we are so grateful to all of you
for sharing part of your day with us.
We'll do a special shout out now to Wahpeton High School
in Wahpeton, North Dakota.
We hope you and everyone watching around the world
shine bright like a space diamond today.
I'm Coy Wire.
Thanks for watching "CNN 10."
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