Episode 189 - Puerto Rico - How politicians Weaponise Disaster

This morning Puerto Rico is already going into recovery mode after the passage of tropical storm Dorian,  the first major storm to strike the island since Hurricane Maria in 2017, which hit with 175 mph winds. Maria knocked down 80 percent of the island’s power lines, leaving 3.4 million Americans without power in the largest blackout in US history, and led to the untimely deaths of almost 3,000 people.  Keep in mind most of those deaths happened months or even more than a year after Maria hit the island - from a lack of medicines and sub-standard medical care being offered by the island's hospitals. 

 

But as always, the politicians never miss an opportunity to use these crises to bash their rivals.  In the last few days, for example, Donald Trump took to twitter to bash Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan.  His tweet said "Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt. Congress approved Billions of Dollars last time, more than anyplace else has ever gotten, and it is sent to Crooked Pols. No good!...."  He went on to tweet: "We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico. FEMA and all others are ready,  and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You - Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!"

 

Sigh.  Well, leave it to our President to tell the truth about Puerto Rico, but to do it in the most abrasive and boorish way possible.  It's true Puerto Rico's politicians are incredibly corrupt.  It's true their system is broken.  And it's true the FEMA is ready to help.  What's not helpful is for the President to spend any time at all tweeting at his enemies.  He only feeds the anti-trump hysteria which needs no help, you can be sure. 

 

For her part, Carmen Yulin Cruz went on CNN and blamed Trump for the 3000 deaths that resulted from Hurricane Maria. 

 

This is just as childish as Trump's twitter habit, but it's a mirror image. Whereas Trump tells the truth in the worst possible way, Cruz is twisting the truth into a lie to fit her narrative for her own political gain.  And of course, CNN laps it up. 

 

Take a look at this package I made after i spent two weeks on the ground in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.  It shows how Cruz and the left-wing media tortured the truth to score political points for their side.  Don't let it escape you, either, that when Cruz is making her impassioned speeches at Trump about puerto ricans dying, she is doing it while standing in front of tons of aid that was sent by the federal government.  Much of that aid never got to it's intended recipients because of the failures of Cruz and her administration to prepare for the upcoming storm.

 

Now the good news is that Puerto Rico is much better prepared for this storm than they were for Maria.  In a news conference the new governor Wanda Vázquez said they have now have in stock 5-6 times the spare parts of posts, cables and transformers that they had back then.  But some 30,000 homes in Puerto Rico still have blue tarps as roofs and where the 3 million inhabitants depend on a shaky power grid that Maria destroyed and remains prone to outages even in the slightest of rain storms.  Government officials on the island warned of possible landslides, flash flooding and power outages, with Puerto Rico's health secretary urging those with certain health conditions such as diabetes to be prepared.

The island's transportation secretary acknowledged that crews are still rebuilding roads damaged or blocked by Maria. He said more than 1,000 roads are still blocked by that storm's landslides.  Remember that storm happened almost two years ago.  Unbelievable.  Dorian already caused power outages and downed trees in Barbados and St. Lucia, and while we're still not sure where it will go, the long-term track showed the storm near Florida over the weekend as a possible category 2 storm.

 

So there are likely to be lots of real people who need help in the aftermath of this storm, and there are plenty of resources out there to help.  But politicians slinging mud around - well that's not helping anybody.  In reality, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria may very well influence the 2020 presidential elections because over 200,000 puerto ricans have left and moved to Florida, which as you probably know is an important swing state.  Puerto ricans typically vote Democrat, so if you wanted to form a conspiracy theory about how democrat leaders in Puerto rico purposely botched the response to the hurricane so that they could help elect a democrat in 2020, well you might have some takers.  I don't think that was a conscious thing, though.  Politicians don't have to try and screw things up.  It's their stock in trade.  So our next president may end up being a democrat because a big storm hit a little island in 2017.  I think that's what you'd call the butterfly effect.  I guess we'll see.

 

So that's all I have for today folks.  Thanks for watching the hot zone.  If you like what you're seeing, please share this with your friends and go subscribe over at patreon.com/hotzone.  You'll help keep this content coming - and you get to be smarter than all your friends on issues that really matter.

 

I'm Chuck Holton.  Thanks for being here.  We'll see you tomorrow on the Hot Zone.

 

We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico. FEMA and all others are ready, and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You - Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico. FEMA and all others are ready,  and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You - Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!