The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, got emotional during a television interview on Tuesday while talking about the devastation Hurricane Maria brought to the island.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz was describing the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico on WUSA-9 when she began to cry.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I know that leaders aren’t supposed to cry and especially not on TV, but we are having a humanitarian crisis,” Cruz said. “And we’re doing all we can.”

“And the worst fear is that we cannot get to everyone in time,” she said.

Earlier in the day, she told CBS News that island officials “need to get our shit together because people are dying, people are really dying.”

“It’s life or death, every moment we spend planning in a meeting or every moment we spend just not getting the help we’re supposed to get, people are starting to die,” Cruz said.

She added that the situation is especially dire because Hurricane Irma had hit the territory two weeks earlier, before Hurricane Maria came through.

“There are people who have had no food and no water for 14 days,” Cruz said.