The tropical storm-turned-hurricane Ernesto is moving through the Atlantic Ocean, but is projected to largely avoid the East Coast, which is a relief. Yet that doesn’t mean American citizens will be unaffected; the storm passed by Puerto Rico, deluging the island and leaving more than 700,000 electric customers — about half the island’s 1.5 million customers — without power, once again.
There’s a certain amount of damage that is inevitable when a big storm hits, but Puerto Ricans have come to know painfully well that when there’s a will, things can be fortified and fixed quickly; when there’s not, they can be left to flounder. One of the most lasting images of Donald Trump’s presidency is the then-president in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria, tossing paper towels at affected residents.
The paper towel thing was just a particularly evocative representation of the federal government’s broader failures in Puerto Rico at this time. Years out from the disaster, many Puerto Ricans reported that damages had not been repaired, public infrastructure was still ravaged and that they had been left without potable water and electricity for months. Almost 3,000 deaths would ultimately be attributed to the disaster, many of them not immediate but as a result of the lack of necessities in the Maria aftermath.
FEMA’s own internal report dissecting preparations for Maria acknowledged multiple lapses, including emergency warehouses that sat almost empty even as the storm bore down, untrained frontline staff and disorganized shipping of emergency supplies. One warehouse that was full of emergency supplies sat untouched for years until it was reported on by a local blogger. Weeks from the disaster, two inexperienced firms were given contracts to repair and get the island’s energy grid back online; one, which received a $300 million contract, had only two full-time employees and a CEO who was the Montana neighbor of then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Fast forward to this year, and less than two months ago the Puerto Rican private power authority announced the deferral of $65 million in energy grid maintenance and updates due to budget constraints, just in time for hurricane season. This is all made possible by the fact that Puerto Rico is relegated to a second-class status in the United States, saddled with debt and overlooked by the federal government. As New Yorkers, this plight is particularly personal; thousands of New Yorkers and families, friends and neighbors have experienced it firsthand.
We’re glad that President Biden has issued an emergency declaration for the island, and we should keep in mind that this is unlikely to be the last severe storm to hit the island in the coming months. With all the benefit of hindsight, all the after-action reports and recriminations and investigations and hand-wringing, there really is no excuse to fumble once again. The people of Puerto Rico deserve governments — commonwealth and federal — that will keep the lights on and respond to life-threatening emergencies just the same as if they were on the mainland. Anything less is not acceptable.