“The mayors have come to us and they say ‘Mira (Look) Yulín, we have no food, no water, no one has gone to see us,’” she said. “What am I supposed to do? Just say, ‘Oh, go on your merry way because what I have is for San Juan’? Whatever San Juan gets, we make sure to service our people but we make sure that we have enough to share with other people.”
“Rather than dying from a horrendous act of nature, we’re dying from the horrendous inaction of men and women ― of one particular man — because I’ve seen the FEMA people who are out on the field,” she said. “Their hearts go out. They want to do more.”
In response, Cruz Soto said she’s asked the United Nations to stand by Puerto Rico.
San Juan Mayor: It May Be Easy To Disregard Puerto Rico Because We’re A US Colony, Carolina Moreno, Huffington Post, 16 Oct 2017.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico ― A month after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, many of the 3.4 million citizens on the island are desperate for aid as they struggle daily to find basic necessities like food, drinking water, medicine and consistent forms of communication.
The island’s capital, San Juan, has fared better than the other 77 municipalities. But just outside the metropolitan areas, impoverished communities in towns like Canóvanas and Loíza are still impatiently waiting for FEMA or any government aid to arrive four weeks after the storm.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto, 54, says she has visited towns like Loíza and Comerío outside of her municipality and witnessed bleak scenes, and has called the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the hurricane inefficient and bureaucratic. She’s also criticized President Donald Trump’s leadership during the current crisis in Puerto Rico.
During a sit-down interview on Sunday, Cruz Soto told HuffPost she has “theories” about why federal aid has been slow to arrive to towns no more than than 30 minutes from the capital. She also painted a picture of the stark conditions Puerto Ricans are facing in the metropolitan area and beyond.
“I have learned in this disaster of a situation many things,” Cruz Soto said. “One is that we will no longer be able to hide our poverty and our inequality with palm trees and piña coladas; and two, that the dialogue, the discourse and what you’re seeing have to go hand in hand.”
“Before you could go somewhere and all these green trees and palms trees would be literally hiding away the more disadvantaged areas of San Juan and of Puerto Rico,” she said. “They are raw there [now] for us to see.”
In San Juan, like on the rest of the island, most residents lead their lives under the sweltering Caribbean heat with no electricity to run air conditioning or fans. Many gather inside some of the small number of businesses with generators but head home as soon as the midnight curfew kicks in. Cell service is spotty at best, but phones are only useful if you’re able to find a place to charge them.
At least 84 percent of the metropolitan area has running water, according to the Puerto Rico government website. But that doesn’t mean much for those living in high-rise buildings.
Please go here for video and the rest of the story.
Want to Help? Please consider: Oxfam Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria Response
Hurricane Maria has had a devastating effect on Puerto Rico. In the days following the storm, clean water, food, fuel, electricity, and health care are in desperately short supply. Despite possessing more than enough resources, the United States has struggled to mobilize a swift and robust emergency response.
Oxfam plans to support local efforts to meet Puerto Ricans' most urgent needs in this disaster as well as advocate in Washington for more and better resources for rebuilding.
Donate now to help us meet the most critical needs. 100% of funds designated for hurricane response will be used to support relief and recovery efforts for affected areas.
What? Puerto Rico a U.S.colony??
More understanding: Please check this New York Times review of Stephen Kinzer's
THE TRUE FLAG, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire. You might consider reading the book, too.
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