SANTO DOMINGO.- “My feet hurt and they are swollen.” “I never thought about it, nor had I ever had a fight like that.” With those words, Mrs. Francisca Pérez tries to summarize the odyssey he experienced yesterday during the national blackout that left the country in darkness and paralyzed for some seven hours he Santo Domingo Metro and Cable Car.
Like thousands of Dominicans, his day became a struggle to get home. Doña Francisca walked almost seven kilometers from the Doctor Bernardo Correa and Cidrón avenuesnear the boardwalk, where he works, to the avenue of Los Mártiresclose to President Peynado Bridge.
Before embarking on that walk, he waited more than an hour at the station Joaquin Balaguerin the hope that the subway would resume its service. But the train never arrived. “I returned to the office, tired of waiting,” she says. Half an hour later, he decided to begin his journey on foot towards his home, in Punta, Villa Mella.
“From there,” she says, pointing to Correa and Cidrón avenues, “we walked to Los Mártires avenue, and it wasn’t one or two, there were hundreds of people,” she remembers, still surprised.
You can read: They restore the service of the Santo Domingo Metro and Cable Car; It will be free until midnight
The blackout experience was described as a ‘tragedy’ by those affected who struggled to return home
In the midst of the chaos, a small “banana guagüita” became a momentary relief. “He rode a few of us to the Mirabal Sistersand there we stayed again, waiting for a car. Dead time, no one showed up,” he says with resignation.
After a long wait, she finally managed to board a car that took her to the avenue Charles de Gaulle. “I took it and from there to here,” he says, referring to Punta, “thank God everything was more comfortable.”
Already at home, with swollen feet and tiredness on the surface, Doña Francisca takes a deep breath before repeating what marked her most about the day:
“A tragedy, tragedy, tragedy, what I experienced yesterday because of the blackout.”
