SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Weeks after the island of Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, huge swaths of the territory are still without power, running water, or transportation. But the governor of Puerto Rico is trying an innovative approach for getting help from the mainland.

"We are desperate," Gov. Ricardo Rosselló wrote in an open letter to the Taliban. "People keep pointing to Cuba on a map. Please let us know what you did to get so much help from the U.S. government."

The letter, posted on its own independently-run web domain — www.PuertoRicOhNo.gov — garnered instant attention from news media outlets, and went viral on both Facebook and Twitter.

The site's heavily moderated discussion forum has served as a flashpoint for thousands of threads of topics, most of which devolved rapidly into people telling Puerto Ricans to "go back to their own country."