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The first pictures now coming in from Puerto Rico after taking a direct hit

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Hurricane Maria slamming into the island. 
One official saying the island is destroyed.

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Hours, hours with winds and rain. It didn't stop.

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Power lines are down, streets are impassable, many roads are flooded.

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High winds uprooting trees, overturning cars, and turning buildings into piles of twisted metal.

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It is something that will change Puerto Rico forever.

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We had no water, no food.

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No gasoline, no communication at all.

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Not knowing where my next meal would come from...

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It hasn't been easy.

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After Hurricane Maria, everything was gray, all the plants were dead

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Hurricane Maria took the color away from us. I

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I am sure that these children will not be the same.

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They will not be the same. They are still struggling and trying to recover from this.

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My name is Joe Acaba.
I'm a NASA astronaut of Puerto Rican descent.

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I was about a week into my mission on the International Space Station.

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Hurricane Maria was forming up, and from there, if you looked out the window,

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You know, Maria took up a big chunk of what we could see it was going to cover the entire

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It was going to cover the entire island.

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After the hurricane, their power grid was pretty much taken out.

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You just couldn't see the island anymore.

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The hurricane I think had a huge impact on you know, the the island as a whole but especially the kids.

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Joe Acaba was our hero, and
we needed something positive.

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The students needed
something positive.

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We wanted to pull through, forget all that happened,

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and lift up our spirits, and lift up the island.

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So, I knew I couldn't do much from up on 
the International Space Station

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But I did want to connect with the students to show them that there is hope,

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and that there are people out there they care about them.

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NASA has the STEM On Station which allows the students and teachers to talk to the

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astronauts in the space station.

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It's making that connection so that maybe you know, they become more interested

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and we can inspire them more to study the STEM fields.

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So we were able to establish and coordinate with NASA

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one of these video conferences. 
Thousands of student from different parts of the island

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watching the video conference
with the space station, talking to Joe.

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This is Joe aboard the International Space Station

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I have you loud and clear.

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[OVERLAPPING QUESTIONS]

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It was awesome because you know as soon as it came up you could hear people clapping people were excited

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So even though I couldn't see him, you know, I could feel him and that was pretty neat.

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It was amazing. 
He called from the International Space Station.

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To see how Puerto Rico was doing,
and that means a lot a lot for us.

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A lot.

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In May of 2018, I was able to go back to the island.
 My first time since the hurricane.

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it was a great opportunity to

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to get out and kind of come full circle with those students, to go and see them in person and

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you know kind of reiterate how important they are and

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Just to give them a little bit more hope because there's still a long way to go on the island

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He's a hero for us. Kids love him.

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Everybody loves him here.

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Joe Acaba is the role model
that we need at this time.

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I want to be like him.

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I want to go far and I want to be an
 example for little kids when I'm older.

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Not only is the International Space
 Station a great tool for

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scientific research and exploration,

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but for students from Puerto Rico in
particular, I think that having that