Poor Puerto Rico can’t catch a break — or get quick help from the U.S. government | Opinion
Poor Puerto Rico can’t catch a break from Mother Nature — or land quick help from the U.S. government.
It’s not like Tuesday’s predawn 6.4 magnitude earthquake wasn’t a disaster foretold. It was the second earthquake in two days.
The intense seismic activity toppled homes, killed at least one person, destroyed a colonial-era church and left much of the island in the dark.
A 5.8 magnitude quake on Monday, preceded by almost a week of temblors, collapsed the beloved Punta Ventana on the southern coast, a stone arch shaped by natural forces into a window-like figure, and also did serious damage to homes.
But once again, as it was during Hurricane Maria, the U.S. response to a natural disaster in the commonwealth island is at best political lip service, and at worst, nonexistent.
La isla olvidada, some call Puerto Rico.
The forgotten island, where 2,975 people died during Hurricane Maria and in the aftermath, one of the largest disasters in U.S. history.
But I think the neglect runs deeper and is more sinister than forgetfulness.
The disrespected island, I say.
There was not a word uttered by President Donald Trump Tuesday morning. He was too busy running a propagandist campaign on Twitter to diminish the gravity of his impeachment and to persuade Americans that his assassination of the top Iranian military leader wasn’t irresponsible.
Florida’s two senators, however, chimed in to give Trump (and themselves) a hand with Puerto Rican voters in the state.
They offered prayers.
They said they were reaching out to Puerto Rican leaders, FEMA and the president to facilitate help.
Scott, accused by Democrats last April of blocking a multimillion-dollar aid package for Puerto Rico at Trump’s behest, jumped on the earthquake story before Rubio — and remained on it most of the day.
Scott tweeted that he had talked to Trump and FEMA officials, and that there’s a staff of 2,300 on ground “ready to help.”
No talk of money, though.
Rubio’s tweet was more lame and uncommitted than Scott’s.
He “will get in touch,” he wrote, with local and federal authorities. ”to help facilitate any federal resources that may be needed.” The senator has been very busy defending Trump’s unilateral strike on Iran without congressional approval.
“Puerto Rico still hasn’t received the billions of dollars Congress approved over 700 days ago because of Trump’s hatred for the island,” an angry Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, tweeted at Rubio. “Why don’t YOU stand up to him for once in your life?”
Puerto Rico is going to need more than tweets from Rubio and Scott.
Their tweets aren’t going to turn the lights back on.
Their slow-motion moves as the crisis escalates bring to mind the pleas of Puerto Rican leaders after Maria, when Trump said silly things such as how difficult it was to send help there because the island is surrounded by water.
“I am begging, begging... if anyone out there is listening to us, we are dying,” San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said then, in a heart-breaking appeal for help.
But all Trump and his choir had to say was that Cruz is a leftist and the proof was that she had visited Fidel Castro in Cuba. Because spinning a political narrative is more important than human beings who’ve just lived through a catastrophic event.
Cruz wasn’t exaggerating. Thousands died as a result of not doing enough for the island’s 3.2 million U.S. citizens.
And now, there’s a new chapter to write.
As of this writing, all of those tweets had generated a letter to Trump urging him to do the obvious: send emergency disaster aid to Puerto Rico.
To which I’d like to add, and don’t take a year to end the blackout.
We can’t stop hurricanes and earthquakes from occurring, but there’s plenty of force in that Puerto Rican vote in Florida to affect the U.S. response, if they would only use it.
One of Puerto Rico’s natural wonders, Punta Ventana, carved out by the sea beating against rocky outcrops, may be gone.
But the window of a 2020 election looms on the horizon.
May politics, if not human decency, be the key to getting Puerto Ricans the help these American citizens deserve to rebuild — and quickly.
This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 5:17 PM.
