Puerto Rico is rationing water, but many residents stopped trusting the tap long before the drought

Residents collect water from a tanker truck amid government-imposed water rationing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in August 2026. Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images Imagine turning on your kitchen faucet and nothing comes out. Not for an hour, but for two full days. Then the water returns, only to stop again two days later. That is what more than 180,000 customers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and six nearby municipalities have been dealing with since Aug. 7, 2026, and officials expect 48-hour…