Ease the misery in Puerto Rico

No. People would be furious — and the president of the United States certainly wouldn’t threaten to abandon federal relief efforts.

The state of affairs would be seen as unacceptable, as it is. The 3.4 million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico are owed a far better response from their government than they have gotten thesepast three weeks.

Conditions on the island remain grim, exacerbated by the delay in getting help. Washington Post reporters detailed an island plunged into darkness with roads impassable, communications knocked out and the economy at a standstill. The New York Times detailed the impacts on health care, with hospitals running low on medicine, patients going without critical treatment andan increasing risk of people getting sick — and dying — from contaminated water. The Guardian reported on food shortages, with federal emergency workers unable to meet the demand for meals. “We feel completely abandoned here,” the mayor ofYabucoa told reporters.

Maria was the strongest storm to hit Puerto Rico in nearly a century. There is no minimizing its catastrophic effects, nor the logistical challenges of getting help to an island already suffering frompoor infrastructure and long-standing financial problems. But none of that excuses the federal government’s sluggish response and poor planning. Why, for example, as the Times reported, were only 82 patients sentto the medical treatment ship Comfort over six days when there were so many moresick people in peril?

Yet, almost incredibly, President Donald Trump on Thursday blasted out a trio of tweets trying to shame the U.S. territory for its current problems and putting its residents on notice that the federal government might pull out. So much for his promise to “be there every day” until the people of Puerto Rico are “safeand sound and secure.”

It is time to stop treating the people of Puerto Rico like second-class citizens. Congress should give Puerto Rico the resources it needs and find out why so many Americans still live in misery with so little hope for the future three weeks after disaster struck.