The Real Story Behind Puerto Rico's Hurricane Relief Efforts and San Juan Mayor's Comments

A lot of lies, half-stories, mistruths, and rumors have been floating around as it relates to hurricane relief efforts in the United States territory of the island of Puerto Rico. There have been exchanges between Donald Trump and the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Cruz, crazy headlines put out by the media that border on the edge of libel, and so much more. It can become challenging to dig through the muck and mire to get down to brass tacks and find out what’s really happening. At the same time, once one gets away from all of the ancillary distraction, it’s pretty simple to see what’s going on.

Comments made by San Juan’s mayor were just overly dramatic. During a press conference in front of boxes and Goya food products, she said “we’re dying” and “I’m done being nice and politically correct” just to name a couple of things. She was referring to the logistical nightmare the island is currently facing. They have simply not been able to move hurricane relief items such as food and water from the docks to their destination either at all or in any way. Much of the blame for that is being laid at the feet of Donald Trump. But it isn’t his job to drive trucks. All he can do is what he has done.

So far, plenty of military troops have been deployed to Puerto Rico. Along with humanitarian organizations sending human resources, money, food, water, building materials, and more. The problem is simply the logistics of moving the products off the docks and to their final destination. Puerto Rico is a small island but is geographically challenging. Mountains, narrow streets, and rivers complicate traversal as well as debris on the roads from the two storms that hit essentially back-to-back: Irma and Maria.

A rumor was floating around that truckers were on strike but that’s not true. The problem is that many of the truckers are not able to get from their homes to the docks. Maybe they do not have cell phone service to contact the company they work for. Maybe they cannot move their vehicle from where they live to the docks to pick up goods. Or it could be that their vehicles were damaged in the hurricane and ensuing floods . Either way, all the problems currently being faced on the island can be boiled down to a lack of efficient island traversal and that’s it. Anything else seems to be pure rumor, speculation, and dramatism.

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