Bethenny Frankel of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise is on the ground in Puerto Rico, and has brought thousands of dollars in supplies and gift cards for the victims of Hurricane Maria.
Frankel posted a video of herself boarding an early morning flight to the island on Monday. “I am headed to Puerto Rico, and we have a plane filled with food and supplies and medical supplies and hygiene and cash cards and money, and we are working for you Puerto Rico,” she said, adding that she has chartered four planes so far to bring supplies to the island and bring patients in need back to the United States mainland.
In another post, Frankel said “we will return these planes full of PR cancer patients, diabetics and people that are dying.”
Frankel has been posting pictures of the devastation since her arrival. “Is this normal to anyone in the world?” she asks in one Instagram video of rubble strewn across the streets. She said that despite the devastation, however, “positivity was vibrating around the island.”
“This is a forgotten island. People have been living on their roofs for 13 days,” Frankel told People. “It is like nothing I have ever seen. People’s entire homes and cars are immersed in mud, the likes I’ve never seen.”
Frankel joins other celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Luis Fonzi who are helping with the devastation in Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria has left much of the island without power, and many people without food or shelter. More than half of the island’s 3.5 million residents remain without potable water, CNN reports. The Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Tuesday that 16 people have died in the wake of the storm.
See below for pictures of Puerto Rico from Frankel’s perspective. She is encouraging others to donate to her organization B Strong to help charter more planes and gather more supplies.
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