Puerto Rico’s Disaster- The New Katrina
Puerto Ricans are still in the process of recovering from the devastation that Hurricane Maria has left in late 2017. As of early 2018 an estimated amount of 4,645 deceased people have been recorded and the numbers keep increasing since new information has been given that the death count is much larger than at 64, which is what the official government has claimed to be.
The reason for this slow recovery is because of the Trump administration not properly seeking action. The relief efforts have been slow and not effective in contrary to what the administration would make you believe. Families are still living with no electricity, running drinking water, or proper medical treatments. Before the storm, Puerto Rico was facing a huge government debt-crisis that left the island in an economic decline that seems impossible for them to get out of since at least 50% of its residence live in poverty.
Upon first reading various articles on the aftermath of the disaster I was shocked to find out that many Puerto Ricans are still living in bad conditions considering that from my memories I had thought that Hurricane Maria occurred in 2016 when in fact it has been less than a year. There is a lack of media coverage from Puerto Rico which is the disadvantage a minority group in the United States has yet to overcome. This is due to the lack of support that is not fully given by the government. The fact that the death count is yet to be a solid number tells me how little the Trump administration cares for its citizens since news broke out revealing that “The official government death toll for that… storm pales in comparison at 64” (CNN) so when we compare 64 to the estimated 4,645, the official government statistic seems inaccurate to say the least.
It was documented that 1,833 people died in Hurricane Katrina, but now Maria has surpassed those numbers because Hurricane Maria is one of the most powerful category 4 storms due to its 155 mph winds. I was appalled to learn that immediately after the hurricane, tourist attractions in Puerto Rico quickly resumed in order to still maintain their profits regardless of helping those in need. For example on a Puerto Rican tourist guide website they claimed that the cruises at the San Juan piers were “ back in November wowing visitors as it always has, with most attractions in the city ready for tourists”. It is reported that 87,094 homes were destroyed so the cruise ships could have been used to further provide shelter. They also go as far as to describing the beaches having been “ready as soon as one month after Hurricane Maria.” Such claims are ultimately harmful to Puerto Rico because all people will do is make assumptions that the state Puerto Rico is in after Hurricane Maria hit is in a sense, back to “normal”. This is also allowing the media to manipulate the severity of the situation by dwindling it to yesterday’s news report- in other words a problem of the past that will work itself out eventually in the future. It’s as if saying that Puerto Rico should invest in the private tourism before they invest in rebuilding houses or providing medical resources for victims. In doing so those companies are exploiting a disastrous event rendering them helpless to real solutions. Hence, this got me into thinking about who profits the most from disasters?
A term for this is disaster capitalism. Naomi Klein, an activist and author of “The Shock Doctrine”, describes it as when private companies and businesses take advantage of the aftermath of a disaster by “using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock — wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters — to push through radical pro-corporate measures, often called “shock therapy”. This includes deregulating laws and privatization of private property that is meant to strip away indigenous people’s rights (in this instance Puerto Ricans) that otherwise would have never been previously possible. This makes the future for many Puerto Ricans to access electricity again tricky because, as mentioned before, there is currently a slow recovery in which electricity can later be privatized to the point that those already in poverty won’t be able to afford.
The department of Homeland Security allocated $1 billion contracts due to Hurricane Maria. It has also finally been brought to our attention that the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was in charge of granting contracts to companies that can provide disaster relief. The New York Times describes what went wrong was that “FEMA tapped Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past. FEMA awarded her $156 million for the job”. Then by the time 18.5 million meals were due, Tribute, Brown’s company, had delivered only 50,000. Tribute was given the task to sub- contract LLC in order to deliver 30 million meals to victims but delivered only 10s of thousands of them before their contract was terminated by FEMA.
The repercussions of all this is that the suicide rates of Puerto Ricans have tripled from November 2017 and January 2018 due to homelessness, unemployment, and lack of medical and food resources. The lack of support yet again from FEMA in not providing emergency tarps and plastic sheeting is another result of disaster capitalism. I felt disheartened in hearing the news that many Puerto Ricans sought an escape through committing suicide. Months before the hurricane Puerto Rico was actually at its peak of mobilization. Many young college students were protesting for a change. Instead of uplifting our people we failed in sending them enough of the basic human resources in order to help them get back on their feet. This in return affects me because the suicide rate for young latinos has also been a growing issue that doesn’t get addressed because latinos continue to live in the repressed shadows of America and many are afraid to speak out about mental health. In all it makes Puerto Rico’s situation seem forgotten and sees Latinos and Latino struggles as insignificant. This matters because to others now hearing about the conditions Puerto Ricans are living in, people are assuming that the situation has been taken care of since, as mentioned before, people can go there to vacation and visit the tourist parts. In reality the disastrous aftermath keeps exasperating without the need of media coverage. It’s important for Americans to know that no proper action has been taken under the Trump administration and that Puerto Ricans continue to suffer in a slow violence that inadvertently also affects all Latinos in repressed situations.
