Puerto Rico is A Humanitarian Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. ESPAILLAT. Madam Speaker, September 20 this next week is the 1- year anniversary of Hurricane Maria.

One year later in Puerto Rico, in the neighboring island of Puerto Rico where there are U.S. citizens living because Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, the schools are still closed.

One year later and people are still waiting for home repairs.

One year later and the death toll continues to rise.

One year later and we are just now finding out that the death toll resulting from Hurricane Maria and its aftermath resulted in 2,975 deaths, a drastic, dramatic increase from the original reported numbers by the government of merely 64 people.

Madam Speaker, the numbers have ballooned from 64 people who died during that terrible storm and the aftermath, to 2,975. We are just now finding out that close to 3,000 U.S. lives were lost while this administration did very little.

Just this week, the President said that he has done an A-plus job. He seems to feel that there are only 64 deaths there, but that is not the case. In fact, there were 3,000 lives that perished there with slow response, and that is failure. That is an F-minus, to me, for government.

But that is not all. Such is the indifference of this administration to the lives of Puerto Rico. And, Madam Speaker, we have a moral obligation to help the Puerto Rican people. They are American citizens.

When we are in a time of war, when our Nation is in danger, we call upon them to defend us. Thousands and thousands of Puerto Ricans have given up their lives for democracy in the United States.

We all remember the photograph of President George W. Bush on Air Force One hovering over New Orleans right after Katrina, and it was a watershed moment for our Nation that the photo became the poster child for neglect and the failed response of the government during a tragedy.

Well, guess what. Puerto Rico has become our modern-day Katrina. Undoubtedly, this administration's mismanagement of Puerto Rico has become its most significant failure to date.

FEMA provided roughly a third of the meals, half as much water, and just a small fraction of tarps to Puerto Rico than it provided to Texas after Hurricane Harvey in the first 9 days after the storm. Several weeks elapsed before FEMA and the Defense Department increased their presence on the island. And even though airports and ports had reopened after a few days, they still failed to bring the necessary help to that island.

The agencies failed to direct the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other ships to Puerto Rico and provide first aid to the people who were hurting.

We have now entered the 2018 hurricane season. As you know, we are bracing for Florence, Isaac, Helene, and Olivia to make landfall. This administration needs to do better in responding to these emergencies.

It is heartbreaking and a serious tragedy for the American citizens of Puerto Rico, their families, and our Nation as a whole to have been treated this way. We cannot turn our backs on Puerto Rico, and we must continue to support our brothers and sisters along this journey to rebuild their lives during this humanitarian crisis.

Mr. Speaker, the Puerto Rico crisis has become a humanitarian crisis that has proven far greater than we ever imagined.

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