Puerto Rico, on its knees, needs help
Puerto Rico has been crippled by Hurricane Maria, its worst natural disaster in nearly a century. Yet this weekend, the nation’s attention was diverted to kneeling football players.
On Friday, the Guajataca Dam in northwest Puerto Rico seemed ready to burst, endangering the lives of 70,000 downstream residents. That same night, President Trump picked a fight with NFL players and team owners.
The president is upset at athletes who kneel during the playing of the national anthem at games — a protest for what they perceive as racial injustices. He raised the issue at a Friday night campaign rally in Alabama for GOP Senate candidate Luther Strange. Since then, Trump has tweeted about the matter 12 times.
During that same time, he tweeted nothing about the Katrina-like disaster unfolding in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that is home to more than 3 million Americans.
Trump’s silence is disturbing and disheartening. He should be reassuring the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, who were similarly battered by Hurricane Irma two weeks ago. Their plight is far more important.
Let’s recall the president’s tweet a few years back after President Obama weighed in on the Washington Redskins’ namechange controversy. “Our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them, not nonsense.”
Maria devastated Puerto Rico when it made landfall last week. At least 16 people have died, a number sure to grow. The hurricane knocked out the power grid, leaving the island in the dark. It knocked out running water. It damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and buildings. It washed away roads, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach the suffering and dying.
Before the storm, Trump rightly signed emergency declarations for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, paving the way for federal aid. And he’s expected to submit a disaster-relief package to Congress in October, one that includes Florida and Texas.
But Puerto Ricans fear their needs will again be overlooked. As a U.S. territory, the island has no voting representatives in Congress. Yes, island residents pay no federal taxes, but they do serve in the military and have fought in every U.S. conflict since World War I.
Disaster assistance is on the scene. The Port of San Juan reopened Saturday, clearing a path for Navy and cargo ships carrying generators, diesel fuel, water, food and other essential supplies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced plans to distribute satellite phones in critical areas, given the widespread cell service outage. And Coast Guard and Department of Defense ships and helicopters have been conducting search and rescue missions.
It’s going to take months — years, really — to rebuild Puerto Rico. It’s expected to take six months just to restore the power for everyone. And the island was already facing a $73 billion debt crisis.
Given the devastation, there’s growing concern about a mass exodus to the U.S., creating a potential brain drain for the island and taxing resources in states like Florida, which faces its own post-hurricane troubles. After New York, Florida has the second-largest population of Puerto Ricans living outside the island.
“This is a major disaster, not unlike Katrina or Sandy,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told the Washington Post over the weekend. “There is going to be a hefty toll for us to make sure that we can re-establish normalcy and build Puerto Rico back stronger.”
On Monday, signs of hope surfaced. Running water had been restored to about 40 percent of the island, according to Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Dia newspaper. Homes and businesses were starting to get electricity back in Bayamon, a suburb of San Juan. And the island’s largest public hospital, the Rio Piedras Medical Center, had its power restored Sunday night.
But the road to recovery will be long and hard, and needs our president’s attention.
Trump should stop obsessing about football players and focus, instead, on the great many off-shore American citizens now on their knees.
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.