Thanks so very much for remembering … my country, Puerto Rico, is still hurting. It will be years before there’s any semblance of what I knew since my last visit there. My heart and soul ache …
‘I am encouraged that so many are responding to the need of Puerto Rico and its people, disappointed in our own government, and saddened for the people who are still without adequate food, water, medicine, and may still be without electricity and telephone service. ‘
I have not written much, to date, about Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria plowed through the island in late September. The U.S. response in the immediate aftermath was delayed, pitifully inadequate, and controversial. So where does Puerto Rico stand today, just over two months after the worst natural disaster on record in the area?
More than half of the island is still without power, and hundreds of thousands of residents are fleeing to the American mainland in an extraordinary exodus.
It has been weeks since President Trump visited to jovially toss rolls of paper towels to needy fellow Americans and brag about how successful the recovery effort was. But true evidence of progress has been hard to come by. Even the simplest symbols of government, like traffic lights, remain useless. Most of the Pentagon’s emergency troops have begun pulling out, except for those working on the island’s shattered power grid.
View original post 808 more words
It Is What It Is 