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What Can We Do To Help?

So now you may be asking yourself, what can I do to help Puerto Rico. There are still several organizations that are offering aid to the island. One of them being Project hope. As it states on the Project hope website, they are still in Puerto Rico offering assistance and medical care to those in need. You could go to their website and donate money that will go straight to establishing mobile clinics to provide emergency medical attention. If you don’t want to donate money to Puerto Rico, you can take a more hands on approach by Volunteering. You could go to the island and help people rebuild their homes and communities or help to het hospitals up and running. Finally, you can take a more fun approach by vacationing. Tourism makes up about 10 percent of Puerto Rico’s economic activity. By vacationing to Puerto Rico, you will be giving money to the island, and helping many Puerto Rican citizens to keep their jobs. There are a plethora of ways that you could help Puerto Rico today, and each way is equally effective.

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How Hurricane Maria Has Affected Me

As I have said before, I am a proud Puerto Rican. My great-grandmother, who turned 90 earlier this week was born in Puerto Rico. She moved to the United States in the mid 1940s. Most of her siblings stood in Puerto Rico. Today she still has an older brother who lives on the island. He is 96 years old. When Hurricane Maria Reached Puerto Rico and left them with no way to communicate, my family and I were extremely anxious and worried. There were reports of growing death tolls every day, and homes being destroyed all over the island. No one knew exactly how bad the damage would be, or what parts of the island were hit the hardest. Luckily, after a few weeks we received a phone call from my uncle, and he was not hurt and his home didn’t have too much damage. However, there were so many deaths and people’s homes that were damaged, and I know there were people who weren’t as fortunate as my family and I were. This is a difficult situation to be in, and help is desperately needed, even today, now almost two years later.

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The damage

On September 13,1928 Hurricane San Felipe II hit Puerto Rico. (PuertoRicoreport.com). Hurricane Felipe was a category 5 storm and the worst Hurricane the Island had seen until 2017.Back in 1928 there was a reported death toll of 312, however it is believed that the number is closer to 1000. Due to the storm, there was 50 million dollars worth of damage done. Sugar factories and tobacco crops were all lost. There were thousands of people who lost their homes and the people who didn’t lose their homes in the storm had significant damage to their houses. It took Puerto Rico ten years to get back on their feet after the hurricane, and they had to continue to fight to get more funds from the U.S. government. 89 years later, an even worse hurricane hit Puerto Rico. Category 5 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. This storm caused 82 billion dollars worth of damage. While the actual storm had a death toll of 64 people, Hurricane Maria’s aftermath has led to over 4,600 deaths. That’s over 76 times the official death toll, making hurricane Maria more than twice as deadly as hurricane Katrina. The storm knocked down the island’s power grid, leaving Puerto Rico with no electricity, or any way to communicate. Not only did this mean that people could not communicate, but there was no way to properly store and preserve food. The storm also left the island with little to no clean drinking water. There was widespread flooding, and hospital buildings are still severely damaged. Hopefully, unlike in 1928, it won’t take Puerto Rico another 10 years to recover from Hurricane Maria.

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The Help From The U.S. Government

On September 20,2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. This was days after the island was hit by hurricane Irma. 85 billion dollars in damage was done to the island. Days passed and The U.S. Government had done nothing to support Puerto Rico after the damage was done. Instead of addressing the conditions in Puerto Rico, President trump found it more appropriate to address “more Pressing” issues about the NFL on twitter. Trump finally visited the island on October 3,2017. This was now two weeks after both hurricanes had destroyed the island. These people in Puerto Rico had no electricity, no way to communicate, and little to no food. Two weeks later, once president trump is done avoiding the disaster in Puerto Rico, he goes to the island to only make matters worse. Imagine getting no help from the country that you are a part of, for two weeks and then when the president finally shows up, he throws rolls of paper towels at them like they’re savages. Is this to be commended?  Are the people of Puerto Rico supposed to be satisfied with the habitual disrespect that President trump decides to present to us. Puerto Rico asked for 94 billion dollars in aid, and the United States government approved 5 billion. On top of the fact that the U.S. response was so delayed, this was nowhere near enough to support Puerto Rico and get them back on their feet. President Trump, however thought otherwise and went on to say that this was the best possible job that could’ve been done, and that Puerto Rico is ungrateful.

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The Help That Was Given

The first few weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, awareness was high. The news and social media were filled with information about all of the damage that was done. Although there was a lot of information coming out about the island, there was not much help for the first few weeks especially not from the U.S. government. However, there were some who actually helped. One person who did an enormous amount for the Puerto Rico relief effort was Jennifer Lopez. Just days after the hurricane, Lopez put out a statement that she herself was going to donate 1 million dollars from her show in Las Vegas to Puerto Rico. She also teamed up with her ex- husband Marc Anthony to host a benefit show that was broadcasted on Telemundo, Univision, and NBC; which raised awareness and about  9 million dollars. All together Jennifer Lopez raised 35 million dollars for Puerto Rico. Lopez was even the Co- Chairwoman of the recovery effort in Puerto Rico. Pitbull sent his private jet to Puerto Rico and sent cancer patients to the U.S. so that they could continue their chemotherapy treatment. Singer Daddy Yankee matched Jennifer Lopez’s donation of one million dollars. Oprah Winfrey donated 2 million dollars to relief efforts. This was all done before President Trump even visited the Island. But even with all the aid that Puerto Rico was getting it barely but a dent in the 82 billion dollars worth of damage that was done by the hurricane Irma and Maria.

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Help Through Photography

As a proud Puerto Rican, naturally, I am interested in what's going on with the island. In late 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, leaving most of the island without power, and many families with impossible living conditions. I have an uncle who lives in Puerto Rico who is in his mid 90s. Although his home was not majorly damaged by the storm, he did have some electrical problems, like the rest of the island. Still today there are so many people who are struggling and no one would know because it is not being properly broadcasted to the rest of the world. In order to raise awareness, people need to take more pictures of all of the suffering people in Puerto Rico, like Riis did with the immigrants on the lower east side of manhattan in the early 1900s. No one would know about the living conditions of the Irish, or that there were babies that were dying or being sent to unfit living facilities; or even the working conditioned of women. Thanks to Riis and his photography of the immigrants, people were able to get an idea of the unfair treatment of these people. The same need to be done for Puerto Rico, no one cares because its not in their face on the news, but once they see all of the damage and help that the island needs, they will care, and Puerto Rico will finally get the help that they need.

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Puerto Rico

Just yesterday, President Trump tweeted at 7:45 am about Puerto Rico. In this tweet, he stated that he is “the single best thing to ever happen to Puerto Rico”,  and that although “ they are wonderful people” they are wasting so much money and the United States cannot continue to “ hurt our farmers and states with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!” Perhaps President Trump has not seen any pictures of Puerto Rico, or even cared to visit the island in the 563 days since hurricane Maria hit the island, but the once beautiful and and culturally vibrant island is no longer full of life. On top of the 3,000+ deaths from the hurricane, President Trump adds insult to injury by consistently attacking Puerto Rico in his Tweets, with incorrect information. Just This week after the senate blocked billions of dollars in disaster aid from being sent to Midwestern states, in part because Democrats said about $600 million dollars in nutrition assistance fell short of Puerto Rico’s needs, Trump went on a tweeting rampage; stating  in one of his tweets that Puerto Rico got more money than Texas and Florida, who were also hit by hurricanes in late 2017. Trump also incorrectly stated that Puerto Rico received $91 billion in aid from the federal Government, when in fact they only received an estimated $11.2 billion. Puerto Rico not only needs to rebuild homes, but they are also fighting to get clean water and food, and also an entire power grid that was down for the entire island for months and still remains down today for parts of the island. More importantly, President Trump seems to forget that Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth of the United States, just like Kentucky, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. This is not a third world country, and maybe through more writing and pictures of the island there would be a faster and far more helpful response to the devastation in Puerto Rico now, 563 days after the hurricane hit the island.