Trump sees ‘miracle’ Puerto Rico survival, ignores critics
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Touring a small slice of Hurricane Maria’s devastation, President Donald Trump congratulated Puerto Rico on Tuesday for escaping the higher death toll of “a real catastrophe like Katrina” and heaped praise on the relief efforts of his administration without mentioning the sharp criticism the federal response has drawn.
“Really nothing short of a miracle,” he said of the recovery, an assessment at odds with the despair of many still struggling to find water and food outside the capital city in wide swaths of an island where only 5 per cent of electricity customers have power back. The governor of Puerto Rico said late Tuesday that the official death toll has been increased to 34 from 16.
In the heart of San Juan, in fact, a few miles from the air base where Trump gave his thumbs-up report on progress, people stacked sewage-fouled clothes and mattresses outside houses and businesses lacking electricity nearly two weeks after the storm. “Nobody’s come,” said Ray Negron, 38, collecting debris in the Playita neighbourhood.
Trump pledged an all-out effort to help the island while adding, somewhat lightly: “Now I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico. And that’s fine. We’ve saved a lot of lives.”