Forget the politics (for now); Puerto Rico badly needs aid

To feel the emotion of Joaquin Toro is to experience the desperation of the sick and elderly in Puerto Rico.

Toro is among what he terms the lucky stateside Puerto Ricans, people who were able to make a flight to the island in recent days, loaded down with supplies for family and friends.

And what he saw is searing. Mind you, this is two weeks after Hurricane Maria struck. Nearly half of the island still had no safe drinking water. About as many have no electricity. Internet service is sporadic at best.

Elderly people who normally don’t leave their homes — they were up and moving, slowly, desperately trying to navigate the airport in San Juan.

He photographed a line of seniors waiting for a flight out in wheelchairs.

Then there is his own mother, confined to a bed by Alzheimer’s. The machines that help keep her alive are powered only by a generator. And the generator kept breaking.

One night, after spending the day trying to acquire diesel fuel, Toro came back to the family home to find his 85-yearold father atop the roof, struggling to get the generator working again. Toro clarifies that his father is a nimble, capable man. But really, is this a fate to which we should leave our fellow U.S. citizens?

Still, Toro takes pains to steer conversations away from the political dimension. None of it, he believes, serves the people of Puerto Rico well at this moment.

He’s right.

President Trump, it has been widely reported, did not see the most desperate portions of Puerto Rico during his four-hour visit.

Toro doesn’t mention this in our conversation, a day after he has returned to Kansas City, bringing his in-laws back to the safety of the Midwest. His parents wouldn’t consider leaving. The island is their home, and his mother’s health would make it too difficult.

So Toro’s concerns are far greater than our president lobbing rolls of paper towels at a shelter. The same goes for the embarrassing tit-for-tat Trump got into with San Juan’s mayor, Carmen Yulin

Cruz.

Toro’s preoccupation has been with basic needs for survival. He packed three bags with all kinds of extension cords and a lot of parts for generators.

To a stunning degree, Puerto Ricans have lost the technological infrastructure that supports everyday life. There are few cellphone connections.

This has compounded the tough economic circumstances that prevailed even before the hurricane. Crushed by debt, Puerto Rico has seen its population ebb to emigration. Unemployment before the disaster was at nearly 12 percent. The poverty rate for children was nearly three times the rate in the rest of the U.S.

And now it must deal with an estimated $95 billion in hurricane damage.

Puerto Rico’s debt burden has been compounded by decisions made in U.S., laws affecting the cost of goods and differing rules governing Medicaid and Medicare that limits its funding in Puerto Rico.

But, again, those are concerns for other, later conversations. For now, those who want to help Puerto Rico must deal with the more immediate concerns.

There are two segments of humanity that most of us cannot bear to see suffer: children and the elderly. Puerto Rico right now has both.