Let’s not forget the Caribbean
We dream about the Caribbean when planning an island vacation or boarding a cruise ship. We’re drawn to the region’s many charms: pristine beaches, piña coladas, tropical sunsets, steel drums and salsa dancing, and palm trees that sway in the gentle trade winds.
But our island neighbors have been living a nightmare since Hurricane Irma hit two week ago. People aren’t dancing, but searching for food and water. Homes and infrastructure have been wiped out. At least 38 people have lost their lives. Paradise has become a hellhole.
We have our own hurricane headaches here in Florida. Irma left a giant cleanup job, lingering power outages and big hole in our wallets. We’re still coming to terms with much of the middle Florida Keys being reduced to rubble, and the loss of nine lives there. Plus, we’re still trying to process how eight people could die within 12 hours of the power going out at a Hollywood nursing home.
Even still, we cannot forget our neighbors to the south.
They got clobbered hard, many of them harder than a lot of us. Now they’re staring down Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm as of 8 p.m. Monday. Forecasts show Puerto Rico could take a direct hit as early as Wednesday. Our Caribbean neighbors need our help. Already, Irma is proving to be the region’s most destructive and expensive storm, with estimated economic losses of $10 billion or more. It’s going to take a concerted effort, from public and private sources, to rebuild homes, restore food supplies and roads, replenish crops, and get the tourism industry, its major source of jobs, back on its feet.
Irma’s swath of destruction reads like a travel brochure. It targeted Barbuda, Antigua, St. Martin and St. Maarten, St. Kitts and Nevis, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Cuba. Its eyewall skirted Puerto Rico, yet still knocked out power to 1 million people and access to drinking water for another 50,000. Already grappling with an economic crisis, the Puerto Rican government is struggling to provide basic services as it braces for another storm.
The islands are crying for our help. And their leaders say aid is slow to arrive.
Irma first made landfall Sept. 5 in tiny Barbuda, where all 1,800 residents were
evacuated, turning the island into an unihabitable ghost town.
“The damage is complete,” Ronald Sanders, the Antigua and Barbuda ambassador to the United States, told Public Radio International. “It’s a humanitarian disaster.”
French President Emmanuel Macron quickly visited St. Martin last week — a trip that focused the world’s attention on the French-speaking territories impacted by the storm.
President Trump has signed emergency declarations for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, unlocking millions in muchneeded aid. He, too, is planning to visit the territories, though he hasn’t announced a date. He should visit quickly — as soon as Maria leaves. A presidential visit would raise the profile of the more than 4 million American citizens who’ve been impacted by the storm there.
A presidential visit also would serve as a reminder that when we talk about the arrival of hurricanes, some of those storms may already have touched American soil — somewhere in the Caribbean.
Let’s also not forget that ordinary people can help in the relief. Food for the Poor, a Coconut Creek-based charity, is collecting money to send food and supplies to the hardest-hit areas. Its first shipment arrived in St. Maarten last week. Other non-governmental organizations are also helping. Find one you trust and do what you can.
Days after Irma’s arrival, Caribbean residents told visiting journalists their biggest fear is to be forgotten.
Let’s not let that happen, even if we must put plans for our next island vacation on hold.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid, Deborah Ramirez and Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz.