Across Puerto Rico, citizens are struggling as a projected $55 billion in aid arrives at a trickle and the White House falters in its support of rebuilding, Bloomberg News reported. This week, President Donald Trump promised “the A Plus treatment” for residents of tornado-torn Alabama, a state where he enjoys strong support. But he has opposed future help for Puerto Rico and falsely claimed that the bankrupt island wanted to use aid to pay its more than $70 billion debt. Recently, the White House even considered raiding recovery funds allocated by Congress to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Maria killed an estimated 3,000 people in the months after its September 2017 landfall, which leveled homes and businesses and wiped out electricity. So far, the commonwealth has identified 7,505 rebuilding sites and delivered 4,792 reports to the Federal Emergency Management Agency seeking major repairs. Only 67 projects are proceeding, according to Puerto Rico’s government. In a similar period after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the last U.S. hurricane approaching Maria’s magnitude, more than 9,000 were underway.
