Thursday, April 19, 2018
PMT: Remember Puerto Rico? Er, no, we didn't
At the bottom of the screen yesterday, I noticed a little story about Puerto Rico. Well, not so little, really: It was reporting that while still struggling to restore power to the island after the devastation of hurricane Maria-- which occurred seven months ago-- an accident led to the entire island being plunged into darkness.
Several parts of this country have been adversely affected by storms in the last decade. But nothing has equaled the failure of the federal government to address the mess that Maria left behind in Puerto Rico. To really understand all that happened in the two weeks after the hurricane, I recommend this fascinating timeline from The Atlantic. The longer story, though, is important, too-- and troubling. Power wasn't substantially restored even after 181 days, according to the Washington Post. And more recently, we just stopped paying much attention.
And by "we," I mean me, too.
This should be the basic blocking and tackling of government, far more important than the shiny objects that seem to have captured all of our attention, including whatever stripper is in the news today.
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You are right that we take our eye off the ball. Worse than that is that we have lost all our balls.
Puerto Rico like Detroit was an empty canvas after the storm. A great country would have been smart enough to see an opportunity to invest in an all new infrastructure. We as a people have lost our mojo. As we are asking our children and grandchildren to pay for this, so we should be fixing problems so that the fixes will last long enough for them to use. We can start getting things right in November 2018.
Puerto Rico like Detroit was an empty canvas after the storm. A great country would have been smart enough to see an opportunity to invest in an all new infrastructure. We as a people have lost our mojo. As we are asking our children and grandchildren to pay for this, so we should be fixing problems so that the fixes will last long enough for them to use. We can start getting things right in November 2018.
I was so saddened to read about the most recent power outage on Puerto Rico (this morning in the NY Times). We would be so outraged to lose power for more than a week or two yet alone six going on seven months. It sometimes leaves me wondering why the island would ever wish to become our 51st State.
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