Residents cheer Trump visit but not the politics

President’s tweets also draw scorn

JUAN, SAN PUERTO RICO President Trump’s visit here Tuesday drew thanks from victims of Hurricane Maria who said it would shine a light on their problems, but some faulted him for playing politics with their island’s disaster.

“I’m very proud the president is here in Puerto Rico,” said Luz Mendez Fantucci,

79, who watched Trump’s press conference with federal and island officials on a television in the lobby of a hotel where she has been staying since Maria savagely struck Puerto Rico on Sept.

20. “I hope it brings more help, many people need it.”

Jose Cruz, 44, who works at the hotel’s front desk and also watched Trump on TV, shared Mendez Fantucci’s appreciation to the president for calling attention to the needs of people living in the U.S. territory.

But he also criticized Trump for comparing the damage here to the 1,800 deaths in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, by saying the devastation has not been “a real catastrophe” on the same scale as Katrina.

Cruz said there is devastation in the center of the island, in towns such as Luisa and Jayuya, where Cruz has family he has not heard from yet and where basic supplies are still hard to obtain.

“It would be good for him ... not to say to the world there was devastation but now it’s almost recovered,” Cruz said. “There’s been progress, but there’s still lots of work to do.”

Javier Cordero, 57, a retired government worker who lives in nearby Bayamón, was eating lunch with his wife Lourdes Cabrera, 54, after watching Air Force One arrive. “We like that he’s here ... that he understands what happens here,” Cordero said. “A lot of help has arrived, but it hasn’t arrived where it needs to get.”

Atabey Nuñez, 25, who lost her job Friday as an accountant at a local film production company because of the storm, said Trump’s visit spurred the local and federal governments to do more to help people recover. “Now he’s here, everything starts moving to make the federals look good,” Nuñez said. “It’s a political move.”

Nuñez was marooned for more than a week in Caborojo, in the southwest corner of the island after the storm hit. “Trump comes over here only five hours, he will never understand,” she said. “He’ll only see the good part — what they show him — he’ll never see families in the mountains that are isolated ... where there’s no water, no communications, no roofs.”

René Cardona, 43, complained that the federal response has been inadequate. “In the center of the island there’s complete devastation,” Cardona said. And Trump “can’t stop tweeting,” he said, noting the president’s criticism of local aid efforts. “People here, the ones who have access to the Internet, think it’s not the moment for that.”

“It would be good for him ... not to say to the world there was devastation but now it’s almost recovered.” Jose Cruz