Scott Powers
Declaring that “Americans are dying as we speak,” state Sen. Victor Torres blasted the Puerto Rico federal disaster relief efforts in an impassioned call at the Florida Capitol Thursday.
Torres, an Orlando Democrat who’s been active in the Florida-side of the relief efforts since Hurricane Maria devastated the island three weeks ago, also criticized President Donald Trump‘s Thursday tweet that had declared federal relief agencies cannot stay in Puerto Rico forever.
He joined key members of the Florida House Democratic Caucus including state Reps. John Cortes of Kissimmee and Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando.
Torres, a former Marine who is Puerto Rican, blamed a lack of coordination between the U.S. Military, working with FEMA and government officials in Puerto Rico in transporting and delivering the relief supplies, and called the preparation and response to the disaster by the federal government “inadequate.”
“Americans are dying as we speak,” Torres said. “While fellow Americans have generously rallied to donate relief supplies and money to support recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, the federal government has been too slow to respond to this disaster and there is a total failure of coordinated relief efforts to provide supplies and support to the island.
“There are tons of donated supplies like food, water, medicine and other vital resources that are either sitting in warehouses here on the mainland waiting to be sent to Puerto Rico, or even worse, containers of supplies sitting in the seaports and airports on the island that are not being distributed to people who are in desperate need.”
Torres noted that 80 percent of Puerto Rico still is without power and nearly half the island has no drinking water or functioning sewer services.
And then Thursday came Trump’s latest tweets, which also quoted journalist Sharyl Attkisson declaring that Perto Rico survived the Hurricanes and “now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.”
“A total lack of accountability says the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure were disaster before the hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend,” Trump tweeted.
“We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!” Trump tweeted.
“Just this morning, the president tweeted that Puerto Ricans cannot expect relief workers to stay there forever,” Torres replied Thursday. “No one expects FEMA to be there indefinitely, but we should all expect and demand them to stay until they complete their job of aiding fellow Americans.”
