Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto. (photo: CNN)
San Juan Mayor Slams Trump Administration Comments on Puerto Rico Hurricane Response
29 September 17
he mayor of Puerto Rico's capital sharply criticized a senior Trump administration official Friday for calling the government's disaster response "a good-news story," comments that came amid mounting criticism of the federal reaction to the disaster here.
Trump administration officials have defended the federal effort, with acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke telling reporters outside the White House on Thursday that the relief effort "is proceeding very well considering the devastation that took place." She called the federal response "a good-news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane."
After watching Duke's comments, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz appeared taken aback during an interview on CNN, calling the remarks "irresponsible" and saying they upset and frustrated her.
"Maybe from where she's standing, it's a good-news story," Cruz said. "When you're drinking from a creek, it's not a good-news story. When you don't have food for a baby, it's not a good-news story."
Cruz praised the federal government for getting "boots on the ground," and she thanked President Trump for calling the capital. But she said the situation in Puerto Rico has worsened as people have struggled to get basic supplies such as food and water.
"Dammit, this is not a good-news story," Cruz said. "This is a people-are-dying story. This is a life-or-death story. … When you have people out there dying, literally scraping for food, where is the good news?"
Residents of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that is home to more than 3 million American citizens, have struggled without electricity, drinking water, food and medical supplies since Hurricane Maria tore across the island on Sept. 20. Many hospitals remain without power, and fears are mounting about the spread of infection and disease the longer people lack electricity and clean water.
Duke, speaking in Puerto Rico on Friday amid the push back to her comments, referenced her earlier remark and said she was proud of the work being done by federal officials and first responders.
"Clearly, the situation here in Puerto Rico, after the devastating hurricane, is not satisfactory, but together we are getting there and the progress to date is very, very strong," she said. "The president and I will not be fully satisfied, however, until every Puerto Rican is back home, the power is back on, clean water is freely available, schools and hospitals are freely open and the Puerto Rican economy is working."
As the dire situation has worsened, the federal government's initial response has drawn increasing scrutiny.
Critics of the administration have compared it to the government's poor reaction to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or unfavorably contrasted it with the efforts shown after other disasters, including the recent hurricanes that battered Texas and Florida. The retired three-star general who commanded the massive U.S. military response to the Haitian earthquake of 2010 told The Post that it is fair to "ask why we're not seeing a similar command and response" in Puerto Rico.
The Trump administration has bristled at the criticism, with multiple officials defending their response and the president complaining on Twitter about the media coverage. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló has praised the federal government's efforts and said the president has called him multiple times.
Trump has also been criticized for his comments about Puerto Rico, including repeatedly invoking the country's debt issues, which stand in sharp contrast to the way he spoke about Texas and Florida after storms hit those states.
The Trump administration has ramped up its efforts, rushing military hardware and other assets to Puerto Rico as it became apparent the initial response was inadequate and overmatched by the sheer scale of the catastrophe.
"The response still is not where it needs to be, certainly it's not," Rosselló told MSNBC on Friday morning. He added: "We do need more help."
Cruz warned after Maria hit of "horror" in the capital's streets, and she has expressed fears about looting. In an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday, Cruz said a curfew imposed by the governor seemed to be working, adding that crime is not her major concern in the aftermath of the storm.
"It has gotten under control," she said as she walked through the streets of the Old San Juan neighborhood La Perla. "People are adapting to a new reality."
Community members have been protecting one another, "retaking the streets," she said. But she worried that if the government doesn't help supply more food and water to communities in need, "people will become desperate."
"When people become desperate in life-or-death situations, they may be prone to do something they wouldn't normally do," she said.
"The FEMA people have their hearts in the right place," she said of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But "there is a bottleneck somewhere."
Cruz said it is critical to find an immediate solution: "People will die. People have died."
As many as seven people are believed to have died in their homes because of lack of oxygen or dehydration, Cruz said. The municipality rescued 11 people from a nursing home with severe dehydration.
After a call from the White House, Cruz said, FEMA personnel were deployed to the San Juan municipal office, which she said was an encouraging sign. Federal officials also sent pallets of water, food and nourishment for infants and toddlers.
Cruz said she shared with the White House some of the costs the city has already incurred: The municipality invested more than $4.8 million in preparation for and in response to Irma, she said. Hurricane Maria has cost the city $6.9 million as of Wednesday.
She said there were 3,000 shipping containers in the San Juan port that had not been moved because the gates could not be opened electronically, adding: "I'm sorry, you open the gates and by hand you push everything out."
From a historic city wall in Old San Juan, wooden signs could be seen from a basketball court below: "SOS, we need water, canopies, food. La Perla."
"Despacito," the signs read. "Don't abandon us."
The cry for help came from residents of La Perla, a neighborhood on a waterfront hillside once known as one of the most dangerous barrios in the Caribbean. About 300 families live in the brightly-colored, stacked houses on narrow streets.
For many years, La Perla was characterized as a haven for crime and drugs. More recently, residents and the San Juan mayor say, crime has declined significantly. The neighborhood, a breeding ground for reggaeton artists, also received a boost from Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's hit song, "Despacito." The music video, which takes place with a backdrop of La Perla, has drawn scores of tourists to the area.
At dusk on Thursday evening, Jaeliz Perez, 10, played basketball with her cousin, Luis Perez, on a court in La Perla as waves crashed against the shore below them. On the other side of the court, a group volunteering with the municipality cleaned up trees and other debris with construction vehicles.
As the sun began to set, Jaeliz and her cousin walked up the steps, across the wall, and down another set of stairs to their home in La Perla. They needed to be home before curfew, and before a blanket of darkness covered the neighborhood.
"My grandpa wouldn't like it" if she stayed out any later, she said. "It can be dangerous."
They went home and joined their extended family sitting on the front porch in the darkness, chatting together by the light of one cellphone flashlight. The inside of their home was entirely dark, and the view from their back balcony showed a hillside that was pitch black.
"Look, the only thing giving us light is the moon," Eva Elias, Jaeliz's grandmother, said.
The family has been getting by in the evenings with candles, lanterns or cellphones. But walking through La Perla's dark streets at night can be hairy — the terrain is uneven, the slope at times steep. Residents walked to neighboring homes with flashlights, but even then it was hard to tell who was coming or going.
"The kids are playing in the streets; it's dangerous for them," Yashira Gomez, a community leader, said, adding that there are downed wires and debris still strewn about the streets.
Other than water, fuel remains perhaps the most valuable commodity on the island. Daniel Delgado, a longtime resident of Santurce, a San Juan neighborhood, spent four hours in a line to get one 20-pound propane tank so he could cook dinner for his family.
Delgado doesn't agree with anyone who chooses to steal, but he sees the logic behind it.
"There's no help for the poor people, here in San Juan or out in the country," he said. "If there were help, if someone brought water and fuel, then there wouldn't be any crime at all. What would you do if you couldn't work and had no food and your child looks up at you in the evening and said 'Papi, I'm so hungry.' "
Another resident, Liza Rosado, said she was worried about what would happen the longer the outages linger.
"When you take the comforts of life away, people get uncomfortable," Rosado said. "Then there's the gas, the water, eventually people are going to get desperate. Even me, I can't explain it, but I was in the line at Walgreens and I saw a couple walk out with two cases of water. I got jealous, I wanted to know why or how they got so much water."
In La Perla, gathering around one light overlooking the street, a group of neighbors shared sodas and snacks. The National Park Service had distributed water cisterns to some families, but a water truck had not been there in eight days, they said. They were running out of food. They had all gathered sticks and branches together, making a pile in front of their homes and building a makeshift oven around it.
As families walked up one of the tunnel exits, they came across a godsend: a water tank from the municipality, left there a few hours before. In the dark, children and their parents filled up gallon jugs of water to take back to their homes.
The poor neighborhood "is very emblematic of San Juan," Cruz said. "They might not have money, but they have dignity."
When Cruz said an organization called Operation Blessings, based in Virginia Beach, was planning on installing a desalination system that would provide the neighborhood with 1,800 gallons of drinking water a day "so that you don't have to depend on the government," the announcement was greeted with applause.
The organization also donated small, solar-powered lanterns. Cruz said light is crucial for personal security, because "it keeps away the looting; it keeps away the things people are not supposed to do."
Holding their lanterns and exchanging hugs with the mayor, La Perla residents walked around the neighborhood past 8 p.m., its streets suddenly brighter.
"Look, before this was quiet," Cruz said. "Now, this is life."
Incompetent, unprepared and liars. The Hospital ship Comfort sat in port unreadied( it takes 5 days to load supplies) and is leaving tomorrow which takes another 5 days to get there!It doesn't dock and had nothing to do with the Jones Act. The first ship that should be there NOW. This is an outrage.
Homeland security adviser Tom Bossert says hurricane relief and recovery efforts in Puerto Rico “didn’t require a three-star general eight days ago.” http://cnn.it/2wnu1id
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