Puerto Rico’s lingering calamity

From the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel: In the best of times Puerto Rico suffers the pangs of poverty. The island’s 3.4 million residents struggle to keep afloat. Government teeters on collapse.

And life in the hurricane belt constantly threatens Puerto Rico’s tenuous grip on tranquility, making it one big storm away from disaster.

That storm struck last September when hurricane Maria tore through the commonwealth’s heart, decimating power lines, homes, roads, bridges, hospitals — all the basics of life.

Four months later nearly a third of the island remains dark, nearly all of its hospitals are working under makeshift conditions, hundreds of schools are closed and the death toll rises as more sophisticated assessments are made.

While there is no shortage of rhetoric and loudly expressed sympathy for the Puerto Rican plight, neither is there a shortage of criticism.

From the moment Maria’s category four winds stopped blowing, it was evident that Puerto Rico was facing a disaster of epic proportions. It was equally evident that its residents — all U.S. citizens, by the way — would need help commensurate with the storm’s ferocity, and need it quickly.

They didn’t get it, at least as soon as it was needed and not in the magnitude it was promised.

President Donald Trump explained the delay with a reminder that Puerto Rico was an island, hard to get to. To his credit, he travelled to the island four times, though his visits often accomplished hard feelings.

Piqued by complaints from San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz of slow government response, Trump offered a complaint of his own. “They want everything done for them when this should be a community effort,” he said, apparently forgetting the community’s incapacity to help itself.

Still, a humanitarian collapse is unfolding. Yet at times, we seem to regard Puerto Rico as a foreign country. Indeed, recent polls show that a majority of U.S. citizens believe it is a foreign country or don’t know one way or another.

Puerto Rico is entitled to U.S. government help. We owe it and would expect to get it when it’s our turn.