FEMA Will Be Helping Texas for Years. So Why Does Trump Have a Different Standard for Puerto Rico?

“Help us. Without robust and consistent help, we will die.”

Evan Vucci/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Nearly two months after Hurricane Harvey dropped more than four feet of rain in the southeast region of the state, the Federal Emergency Management Authority still has a heavy presence in Texas. The area suffered damage estimated to be up to $190 billion from catastrophic winds and flooding from the Category 5 storm, and since then electricity has been restored, clean up has progressed, and the federal government is working on finding housing for the displaced. “FEMA is going to be there for years,” FEMA administrator Brock Long said two days after the storm hit. 

Contrast this with the situation for the American citizens in Puerto Rico. On Thursday morning Donald Trump threatened to withdraw FEMA and military officials from the hurricane-ravaged island, citing its longstanding infrastructure and financial issues. But it’s been only three weeks since Hurricane Maria made landfall as a strong Category 4 storm, and already Trump has tweeted his intention to walk away: 

At Thursday’s White House press briefing, Chief of Staff John Kelly said the government would stand with Puerto Rico until the job was done, but that “the tweet about FEMA and DOD is exactly accurate. They’re not going to be there forever.”

More than one-third of the island lacks clean drinking water and 84 percent of the residents still don’t have electricity. Grocery stores are slowly re-opening, but many lack fresh food. More than a week after the storm, many Puerto Ricans had yet to see a FEMA official. In rural areas, it may take up to a year before electricity is restored. Because the Puerto Rican government is hobbled by the recovery, the final death toll is still a mystery. On Sunday, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz took to Twitter to beg FEMA for more help.

In response, administrator Long dismissed her concerns saying, “We filtered out the mayor a long time ago. We don’t have time for the political noise.”

But in Texas, the Trump administration is singing a different tune. More than 760,000 people have applied for disaster assistance and FEMA inspectors are still making their way through the region. The agency has also extended hotel stays for victims who have not yet found more permanent housing. According to a FEMA spokeswoman, the agency has paid for more than 1 million nights in hotels, so far. 

They have tried to make it easy for Harvey survivors to apply for disaster recovery assistance which they can do online, by phone, or in person at one of FEMA’s many Disaster Recovery Centers, located throughout the region. The deadline is October 24. 

FEMA also brought in mitigation experts to hard-hit Harris County this week. The specialists were on hand to talk to Texans about how to disaster-proof their homes. The process of recovery will be long and slow, a fact the administration has no problem acknowledging.  As Vice President Mike Pence said during a trip to the Lone Star State a week after the storm,  “We’re just going to stay with the people of Texas all the way through, in not just the weeks and months, but very likely the years that it will take for us to rebuild southeast Texas.” 

Meanwhile, Trump has spent the last three weeks since the hurricane hit clashing with local Puerto Rican officials, accusing them of poor leadership and saying residents need to help themselves.

The chorus of criticism of the federal response to Maria has gotten so loud that Puerto Rico has been dubbed Trump’s Katrina, a direct comparison to the Bush administration’s dismal response to the hurricane that flooded New Orleans and killed upwards of 1,500 people.

Shortly after Trump’s tweets threatening to end aid for Puerto Rico, Mayor Yulín Cruz issued a statement: “You seem to want to disregard the moral imperative that your administration has been unable to fulfill,” she said. “Help us. Without robust and consistent help, we will die.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate