Four months after Maria, desperate in Puerto Rico

Here is what is happening in Puerto Rico more than four months after Hurricane Maria slammed through the island: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still providing food and water, after mistakenly prompting fears it would stop. Tarps cover roofs across the island. Approximately a third of the population is still without power.

No power usually means no hot meals and no refrigeration. It means no air conditioning in tropical heat that is already breaching the 80s.

And that’s all far better than it was in recent weeks.

The island’s disaster was more far-reaching than some of the worst ever seen on the mainland. More than three times as many generators were provided by FEMA to Puerto Rico after Maria as compared with Hurricane Katrina. For the 3.4 million people who call Puerto Rico home, it has been an unconscionably slow recovery. The federal government must extend the true helping hand our fellow Americans desperately need.

The odds were stacked against the island long before hurricane winds swirled. A decadelong recession has prompted a stream of migration away from the island. With the economy faltering after a repeal of a federal corporate tax break, successive governments borrowed excessively and the island is now tens of billions of dollars in debt—which has led to a federal control board demanding austerity.

Mismanagement caused deep cracks in infrastructure. There were bad local decisions after the storm. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority chose not to immediately call in hordes of power workers via mutual aid agreements with mainland utilities. Instead, PREPA at first relied on Whitefish Energy Holdings, a Montana company, due to logistical difficulties and cost concerns, but this only delayed energy restoration. The mountainous terrain posed its own challenges.

Meantime, the federal response has been scandalously inadequate. It started with early logistical stumbles like delayed opening of ports, slowing the delivery of supplies.

The inadequate response continues today with an omnibus $81 billion supplemental disaster-relief package that is stalled in the Senate. It’s hardly enough for Puerto Rico, but miserly when split with other disaster-struck areas such as Texas and Florida.

Many Puerto Ricans see the disaster as an opportunity to rebuild smartly. Better bridges can span rivers, roads will be cleared and improved, and tourism will again flourish, sustaining the economy as Puerto Rico rises.

But to do so, the island needs more help, and more recognition by Washington that these are fellow citizens, too.