Editorial: Puerto Rico tragedy needs greater response.
More than a week after Hurricane Maria blasted Puerto Rico, the island is still staggering from the storm. Power is still out for most residents, and communication networks are down. Food, water, medicine and fuel are still scarce. Homes and buildings have been damaged or destroyed by wind and water. Transportation across debris-clogged or washed out roads is difficult or impossible.
After visiting Puerto Rico’s capital of San Juan on Monday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told Politico on Tuesday that “a serious humanitarian crisis in a U.S. territory impacting United States citizens” was looming. Such dire warnings from Rubio, a Republican, can’t be dismissed by the White House as partisan. Nor can the senator’s call for “a lot more hands-on federal engagement.”
Rubio is right. Puerto Rico needs greater attention and resources from Washington, D.C., right away — before it’s too late. Sending in the cavalry
Thousands of employees from multiple federal agencies — not just FEMA — have been taking part in the recovery effort on the island. But according to Rubio and others in Congress, as well as Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello, the sheer scale of the devastation across the island demands more federal manpower and assets. On Tuesday, Rubio compared the effort so far to “trying to deal with a five-alarm fire with two garden hoses and a kitchen fire extinguisher. It helps, but it’s not enough.”
Congress will need to approve another multibillion-dollar installment of federal aid to keep up with the need for storm relief in Puerto Rico as well as ongoing recovery efforts in Texas and Florida in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. Most of the federal aid for Puerto Rico so far has been concentrated in San Juan. President Trump would be wise to heed calls to make greater use of the U.S. military’s airlift and logistics capabilities to ramp up deliveries of food, water and fuel throughout the rest of the island, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, also devastated by the storm.
The death toll on Puerto Rico, as of Wednesday, was at least 16. But a continued lack of power, food, water and medicine threatened to send the number higher. People with health problems, the young and the old are especially at risk. Rubio pointed to the deaths in Florida days after Hurricane Irma of 11 residents in a nursing home that lost air conditioning. “Puerto Rico’s just as hot, just as humid, and they have senior citizens.” Short- and long-term dangers
Trump took a positive step on Tuesday when he waived the rules that required Puerto Rico to pay a share of the cost of any aid from FEMA up front. Long before Maria arrived, a financial crisis had drained the government’s accounts.
But the Trump administration on Tuesday turned down a request from Puerto Rico to waive the Jones Act, a 1920 federal law that requires U.S. ships to deliver any goods to the island from other U.S. ports. The Jones Act is an anachronism that raises the cost of goods for Puerto Rico, even under normal circumstances. Keeping it in place, especially now, makes no sense.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott has acted to assist Puerto Rico, putting the state’s National Guard on standby, asking public colleges and universities to offer lower in-state tuition to any students displaced from the island by the storm, and prioritizing relief shipments from Florida ports. Volunteers organized by Latino organizations in Central Florida have collected relief supplies for storm victims, and several doctors from Florida Hospital left for the island Wednesday to offer their services. Kudos to all.
It’s critical to help Puerto Rico, not only to head off a humanitarian crisis, but to avoid forcing a huge exodus of refugees for Central Florida and other parts of the U.S. mainland that would further complicate the challenge of solving the island’s financial crisis. As Rubio told Politico, “If you start losing your doctors, your nurses, your professionals, your investment class, your business owners, your college graduates — what do you build your economy with?”
For anyone in Washington, Florida, or anywhere else on the mainland who would oppose or even question the imperative of doing more for Puerto Rico in its hour of desperate need: What part of U.S. territory and U.S. citizens don’t you understand?