It’s 5:30 a.m. and dark in the fifth-floor hotel room, just a few minutes’ drive from the Orlando airport. There are still 20 minutes before the entire family needs to be downstairs to enjoy the free breakfast in the hotel lobby, then they’ll be driving the 15 minutes north to school — first period starts at the “very early” time of 7:20.
This has been the daily routine for nearly two months since Yerianne Roldán, 17, and her sister Darianne, 16, arrived in Orlando from western Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
They’re staying in this hotel room with their mom, Yesenia González, and their stepdad, Eliud Peña. Their hotel room is bright and clean — and pretty standard, albeit for the food stashed under the bedside table, and the piles of suitcases and random belongings stacked in the corner.
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