By LINDSEY WAGONER
More than 8,000 Puerto Rican residents are homeless following a spate of earthquakes that have rocked Puerto Rico for more than a month. There has been slow federal response.
At the start of 2020, thousands of smaller earthquakes have struck the southern part of the island near Ponce. The earthquakes have intensified and have caused catastrophic damage to many towns, from Ponce to Yauco, Guayanilla, Lajas and Guanica.
In a press conference in the aftermath of hurricane Maria in 2017 Mayor of San Juan Carmen Cruz pleaded to the world for help, “I am begging. Begging anyone that can hear us, to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy. We will make it, with or without you.” Puerto Ricans are resilient and determined to survive. Though many areas are uninhabitable, those residents who still have homes are sleeping outdoors in tents. Many islanders are suffering from psychological trauma and living in constant fear that their homes will collapse while they sleep.
Puerto Rico is still suffering the devastating consequences of hurricane Maria that hit in 2017. Some affected residents remain without power and vital necessities. The response from the federal government and specifically, Trump himself, has been dead silence.
Puerto Rico’s governor declared a state of emergency on Jan. 7 after a powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake killed at least one person in the south of the island and caused widespread damage. Governor Wanda Vazquez said the declaration would allow for the activation of National Guard troops in the US territory still recovering from a devastating 2017 hurricane.
The Puerto Rican trench is beneath the Earth’s surface with a fault line that contains two tectonic plates that are shifting. The subtle sliding between plates only measures approximately 2 centimeters per year. Since the earth is always moving the slow convergence rate means smaller earthquakes.
When Hurricane Maria first hit, the Trump Administration did little to aid the relief effort. In fact, he held up the process which delayed the desperately needed assistance. To appease critics, Trump went to tour the disaster in Puerto Rico, two weeks after the hurricane hit.
In his infamous and misguided attempt to console victims, Trump threw paper towels out at those who lost loved ones, homes or property – like a basketball player shooting hoops.
On April 4, 2019, the White House released a statement from President Trump,“The Puerto Rican people have tremendous spirit. When I was there and I looked at the way that — what they have to go through. They have a lot of problems. We’re going to help them straighten it out.”
The Trump Administration was also criticized for their lack of organization and leadership in the relief effort. Whether this was a conscious and deliberate action by the Administration or not, the people in Puerto Rico suffered and some lost their lives due to the incompetence of the Administration.
Now, in what some criticized as an even more extreme and discriminatory action, Trump has imposed conditions on the government assistance. In order to receive the $16 billion in aid, Puerto Rico must surrender budget proposals to a special board to track the funds, bolster a property registration database, and the aid shall not be used to repair the electrical grid. There are seperate unreleased funds for those repairs. The final condition is to reduce the island’s minimum wage of $15 an hour, it is unclear what amount would be acceptable to the Trump Administration. This would mean workers on federal projects will not be allowed to receive this minimum wage standard.
Since people seem to have forgotten about the situation in Puerto Rico:
Thousands are still in outdoor shelters, displaced by the earthquakes. It’s been raining nonstop, which means some of the camps are flooded. FEMA has yet to approve assisted rent to relocate folks. https://t.co/s0YcVoISjP
— Andrea González-Ramírez (@andreagonram) January 26, 2020
This is in direct contrast to the response to Hurricane Harvey that hit Texas in 2017. Immediately after the hurricane hit Texas, Trump coordinated efforts with FEMA to release immediate government aid to people affected. He landed in Texas four days after the violent storm to talk to first responders and tour the damage. Supplies were easily accessible, and plentiful. The aid was released without strings attached- free and clear.
Trump is actively blocking billions appropriated by Congress to provide relief to Puerto Rico. Much of the desperately needed aid has yet to be released. In a press conference Friday, Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey said, “The Trump Administration has since refused to help them recover. None of that money, two years later, has actually reached the island.”
This has great stats and is really informative with fitting quotes! I didn’t know that the relief funding was conditional.