Iâve had many people in the US ask me how they can help, and Iâll be honest that I havenât had the time to sit down and properly think about it (doesnât help that I have access to information on the internet for approx 15 minutes every day), but now Iâm going to throw this out there. Itâs going to be long.
Firstly, you need to understand the situation. Our infrastructure is destroyed. We have no power, in fact, the 4% of San Juan that managed to get electricity back lost it again. Last I read only 45% of the island had clean water services. This isnât just a lack of food and water. In case you hadnât heard, weâre also approximately $72 billion in debt, and this hurricane is estimated to have cost over $30 billion in damages.
You can send all the food and bottled water you want, and by all means please continue to do so because we are short on those, but thereâs also a huge distribution problem. Many supermarkets have not been able to open again because of structural damage. People are making lines for hours to be able to get into the few that are operational again. Gas stations? 80% were supposed to open again by Tuesday, September 26, yet people are still making literally 8+ hour lines (this is not an exaggeration) in the HOPES that they will be allowed to get some fuel. Many banks are only dispensing cash, which is vital because the vast majority of establishments can only accept cash at the moment, and the lines for the atms also can take hours. People have 5am to 7pm to be able to do all these things in one day because of curfew. Some hospitals are running out of diesel already, meaning that their back up generators are shutting down, so all those patients are being transferred to government hospitals that were already understaffed and understocked BEFORE Maria.
To recap, in San Juan, where conditions are better, people are wholly dependent on cash to buy basic necessities, people have no power, in many cases no water, no communication with the outside world or the rest of Puerto Rico, no gasoline to get around, barely any places to get food, and entire hospitals are being evacuated. Literal boatloads of supplies are sitting in ports because the government canât distribute them, and some ships are just sitting there with their cargo.
Itâs much worse outside of San Juan. Entire towns have no working gas stations, no hospitals, no running water, and no operational supermarkets (on top of no power or communication). Maria destroyed the vast majority of our crops. Many of these towns were also hit the hardest by the hurricane and saw thousands of families completely lose their homes. Now back to the distribution problem: you can send tons of food and articles of basic necessity, but if the government is having a hard time distributing them in the metropolitan area, itâs literally downright impossible to get them to some of these towns.
But what about the aid that has already been sent? Not enough. We need more resources, personnel, money, everything. Many of the rescue personnel and federal authorities already here came weeks ago because of Irmaâs devastation in other Caribbean islands and canât focus entirely on the disaster in Puerto Rico. Like I said earlier, distribution and mobilization is one of the key problems. I go around San Juan and donât see any of the people that came to help. Entire towns elsewhere in the island have not seen a single paramedic, soldier, or FEMA worker. The only places Iâve seen them are in the hotels theyâre staying at, so thereâs clearly a massive problem with mobilization.
American politicians? Iâve seen some pay lip service to the plight of Puerto Rico, but not a single package or proposal. Local officials had to beg Congress to notice what was happening. President Trump was kind enough to give $1 million of his vast fortune to efforts in Houston (notice the sarcasm), yet he hasnât offered a single penny to efforts to rebuild Puerto Rico. He thought that criticizing NFL players exercising their right of free speech was more important.
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