25 September 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – The first anniversary of the destruction of modern Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands by Hurricanes Irma and Maria brought numerous retrospectives in the media. Not many focused on the actual cost to rebuild PR. Although there are stories of recovery, a picture of widespread infrastructure failure and poverty […]
By Peter S. Green 21 September 2018 (CBS News) – A year after Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico, leaving some 2,975 people dead and knocking the economy on its back, it is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. territory may never fully recover from the storm.Puerto Rico was already insolvent before the 2017 storm, […]
By Frances Robles and Jugal K. Patel 20 September 2018 PUNTA SANTIAGO, P.R. (The New York Times) – When it rains, Maritza Cruz Sánchez springs into a well-rehearsed, 30-minute ritual: She climbs a ladder to where her roof used to be and sucks on a hose to siphon puddles from the plastic tarp suspended over […]
By Paloma Esquivel 20 September 2018 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Los Angeles Times) – The rain falling into Bianca Cruz Pichardo’s home in Puerto Rico’s capital forms a small stream from her living room to the kitchen, past a cabinet elevated by cinder blocks. The living room is dark, save for some light coming from […]
By Maria Socorro Oyola 20 September 2018 (NBC News) – In the days and weeks after Hurricane Maria, friends and family never turned their backs on me. Through all the havoc that these storms brought to Puerto Rico and to the Puerto Rican people, I cannot quite put into words how it felt to know […]
By Emily Birnbaum 17 September 2018 (The Hill) – Thousands of protesters are expected to mobilize for a week of action to “demand justice” for Puerto Rico one year after Hurricane Maria devastated the island’s infrastructure and resources, displacing thousands and resulting in almost 3,000 deaths.Power 4 Puerto Rico, a coalition of Puerto Rican and […]
By Ben Kamisar 16 September 2018 WASHINGTON (NBC News) – FEMA Administrator Brock Long Sunday questioned the relevance of independent studies tying thousands of deaths to the aftermath of last September’s hurricane in Puerto Rico, echoing President Donald Trump’s criticism of those findings as Florence continues to batter the Carolinas. [cf. Death toll in Puerto […]
By Amy B Wang 15 September 2018 (The Washington Post) – “Like magic” and “NO WAY!” These are the latest phrases President Trump is using to express continuing disbelief that Hurricane Maria could have caused nearly 3,000 excess deaths in Puerto Rico. In his mind — or in his tweets, at least — the death […]
By Samantha Schmidt and Arelis R. Hernández 12 September 2018 NAGUABO, Puerto Rico (The Washington Post) – As Damarys Cantero awakens her 6-year-old daughter in their damp, sweltering home, ocean waves crash up against the pile of rubble that was once their front porch. The single mother opens a bag of buns in the kitchen […]
15 September 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – On Thursday, Trump took time from his busy schedule to tweet that the official death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria “was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible”.It’s hard to decide where to start with such a cockamamie claim, so […]
