U.S. defends crisis response
General goes to Puerto Rico to assess effort; victims say help scarce
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Trump administration declared Thursday that its relief efforts in Puerto Rico are succeeding even as people on the island said help was scarce and disorganized while food supplies dwindled in some remote towns eight days after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory of 3.4 million people.
President Donald Trump cleared the way for more supplies to head to Puerto Rico by issuing a 10-day waiver of federal restrictions on foreign ships delivering cargo to the island. And House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief account would get a $6.7 billion boost by the end of the week.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military sent in Lt. Gen. Jeff Buchanan, commander of U.S. Army North, to help direct the hurricane response. Buchanan will assess the situation so that the military can provide the highest possible level of support, Northern Command spokesman John Cornelio said.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke declared that “the relief effort is under control.”
“It is really a good news story, in terms of our ability to reach people,” she told reporters in the White House driveway.
Outside the capital, San Juan, people said that was far from the truth.
“I have not received any help, and we ran out of food yesterday,” said
Mari Olivo, 27, a homemaker whose husband was pushing a shopping cart with empty plastic jugs while their two children, 9 and 7, each toted a bucket. They stood in line in a parking lot in Bayamon on the northern coast, where local police used hoses to fill up containers from a city water truck.
“I have not seen any federal help around here,” said accountant Javier San Miguel, 51.
In the town of San Lorenzo, 40 miles west of the capital, people walked through calf-high water to get supplies because the bridge over a river outside town was washed away in the storm.
San Lorenzo residents are collecting spring water to drink and taking turns cooking food for each other as residents run low on basic supplies.
“Just like God helps us, we help each other,” said a weeping Noemi Santiago. “Here one person makes food one day, another makes it the other day, so that the food that we have goes further.”
FEMA, which is leading the relief effort, has sent 150 containers filled with supplies to the port of San Juan since the hurricane struck Sept. 20, said Omar Negron, director of Puerto Rico’s Ports Authority. He said all the containers were dispatched to people in need but private aid supplies have not reached Puerto Rico.
“The federal response has been a disaster,” said lawmaker Jose Enrique Melendez, a member of Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s New Progressive Party.
He said the Trump administration had focused more on making a good impression on members of the media gathered at San Juan’s convention center than bringing aid to rural Puerto Rico.
“There are people literally just modeling their uniforms,” Melendez said. “People are suffering outside.”
Trump and his advisers defended the administration’s response to the hurricane, which destroyed much of the island’s infrastructure and left many residents desperate for fresh water, power, food and other supplies. Even money is running in short supply.
There are long lines at the banks that are open with reduced hours or the scattered ATMs that are operational amid an islandwide power outage and near total loss of telecommunications.
“The electric power grid in Puerto Rico is totally shot. Large numbers of generators are now on Island. Food and water on site,” Trump tweeted early in the day.
Bayamon Mayor Ramon said FEMA officials sent a truck with a limited amount of food Monday. Rivera said he began distributing it to hard-hit rural areas.
“I don’t wait,” he said when asked whether federal officials helped with distribution.
FEMA officials said Thursday that 1 million meals
“I have not received any help, and we ran out of food yesterday.” Hurricane Maria survivor Mari Olivo
and 2 million liters of fresh water had been distributed in Puerto Rico and 2 million more meals and 2 million more liters of water were on the way. There were conflicting figures: A day earlier, FEMA said it had distributed 167,000 meals and 539,000 bottles of water.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said 10,000 government workers, including more than 7,000 troops, were helping Puerto Rico recover.
The Department of Homeland Security’s acting administrator of the region that includes Puerto Rico said distribution had been hampered by the destruction of roads and bridges.
“In addition to building that first line of the supply chain, we are also rebuilding the entire distribution system how we’re going to deliver commodities and resources to the people of Puerto Rico,” acting administrator John Rabin said.
Duke had waived a law known as Jones Act earlier this month to help ease fuel shortages in the Southeast following hurricanes Harvey and Irma. That order included Puerto Rico but expired last week, shortly after Maria struck. The nearly century-old Jones Act bars foreign-flagged ships from carrying cargos from one U.S. port to another.
The administration initially said a waiver was not needed for Puerto Rico because there were enough U.S.-flagged ships available to ferry goods to the island.
Meanwhile, Maria raced away from the East Coast. It lashed North Carolina’s Outer Banks, washing waves over the only highway connecting Hatteras Island to the mainland.