Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., fled the deep freeze lingering over their home state for sunny Puerto Rico, where the September 2017 ravages of Hurricane Maria remain a daily fact of life for the island’s permanent residents. They returned home with a predictable conclusion: nearly four months after the hurricane left Puerto Rico behind, conditions remain horrible, and it’s all President Trump’s fault.
Indeed, approximately half of Puerto Ricans remain without electrical power, and many do not have enough of those ubiquitous blue tarpaulins to cover damaged roofs. Basic needs, including water, sewer service and food, go unmet in many places. “The island is still in triage, economically, financially and medically,” Sen. Blumenthal told Hearst Newspapers on Tuesday, the first of the senators’ two days in Puerto Rico. “What the (federal) government has done here is sadly and shamefully inadequate.”
Puerto Rico’s problems go much deeper than Sens. Blumenthal and Murphy are prepared to acknowledge, and comparisons with the relief effort that took place in Houston after Hurricane Harvey struck in late August don’t wash. It’s hard to get emergency supplies and manpower to an island more than 1,000 miles away from the U.S. mainland, and Puerto Rico’s infrastructure – especially its electrical-transmission system – was failing well before the hurricane arrived.
“The island’s faltering electrical grid, now crippled by the twin blows of Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma, already was struggling to keep the lights on after a history of poor maintenance, poorly trained staff, allegations of corruption and crushing debt,” the Los Angeles Times reported in mid-September. “As recently as 2016, the island suffered a three-day, island-wide blackout as a result of a fire. A private energy consultant noted then that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority ‘appears to be running on fumes, and … desperately requires an infusion of capital – monetary, human and intellectual – to restore a functional utility.'”
Sens. Blumenthal and Murphy wielded their harsh depictions of circumstances in Puerto Rico as partisan cudgels against Mr. Trump – something they assuredly wouldn’t have done if Hurricane Maria had come along during the administration of fellow Democrat Barack Obama. That’s fine for the Democratic Party, for which actual problem-solving is ranked a poor second to bashing Mr. Trump and the Republican Party in preparation for the 2018 elections – but what about actual victims of the crisis? Hundreds have decamped for places like Waterbury, where 266 children from Puerto Rico have been enrolled in the city’s public schools. What is Connecticut’s congressional delegation doing for them – and for the city? “They continue to arrive daily, and to say they are putting a strain on our school district is an understatement,” Mayor Neil M. O’Leary told the Republican-American’s Michael Puffer last month.
Puerto Rico doesn’t need a pair of northeastern noisemakers; it needs skilled electrical workers, and modern generation and transmission equipment. As for Connecticut and its citizens, they need a congressional delegation that puts their needs first – especially when doing so also helps many victims of Puerto Rico’s disaster find relief and security among the people the delegation is supposed to represent.
