Trump's Slurs Against Puerto Rico Rally Recall Disgraceful Response to 2017 Hurricane Maria

One day after a warm up speaker at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s closing campaign rally in New York City on Sunday night called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” the island’s largest circulation newspaper El Nuevo Día October 28 endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for President.

The first paragraph of the editorial observed, “This is what Donald Trump and the Republican Party thinks of Puerto Ricans?” Signed by the signed by the editor M. Ferre Rangel, the editorial concluded, “We ask that every Puerto Rican that can vote please represent those of us who cannot vote. Vote for Kamala Harris.”

The racist slur by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe quickly reverberated across the U.S., especially in Puerto Rico and to states with large Puerto Rican populations, including critical Pennsylvania where an estimated 470,000 out of 600,000 registered Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent. That fear prompted a feeble effort of damage control by the Trump campaign, which claimed the hateful comment did not “reflect the views of Trump or the campaign.” But notably there was no apology by Trump, or from the campaign about the multiple other racist jibes by various speakers targeting Latinos in general, African Americans, Jews, and, of course, Harris.

Ironically, the hate rally also came the same day Harris, campaigning in Philadelphia, presented a new policy platform for Puerto Rico, premised on economic development and improved disaster relief. She also reminded everyone of Trump of having "abandoned and insulted" the island during Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Indeed, as the New York Times reported Tuesday, the memories of Trump’s long, and ineffectual delay of aid to the island from a super storm that caused thousands of deaths and massive devastation, were quickly noted by those on the island, including his insulting image of tossing paper towels to a crowd at his one stop in San Juan two weeks after Maria made landfall.

“Well, this isn’t the first time. Three thousand Puerto Ricans died because he weaponized the aid. Because he didn’t think our lives were worth saving, and because of his inability to do his job,” said former San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz.

“You have to understand the context of how hurtful this is by understanding the botched and deadly response to Hurricane Maria,” said U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Florida Democrat of Puerto Rican descent. Even the chairman of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party said that he would withhold his support from Mr. Trump unless he apologized.

Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on September 20, 2017, with a huge storm surge, very heavy rains, and wind gusts over 100 miles per hour. The hurricane's power was magnified nearly five times by climate change, a preview of what the nation would see again this year with Hurricane’s Helene and Milton.

As the federal response by the Trump administration was glacially slow, hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed, struggled to meet medical needs, clinics and doctor’s offices failed to re-open, patients with chronic illnesses did not have access to needed medications, and concerns emerged about the potential of cholera and other epidemics.

Where Trump failed, nurses and labor responded. Within days, National Nurses United’s Registered Nurse Response Network played a leading role in a 300-member AFL-CIO sponsored humanitarian mission, working with the Puerto Rican Federation of Labor and the San Juan mayor’s office. It launched on October 3, 2017, with NNU dispatching 50 volunteer RNs, the first of several delegations to provide medical aid in local hospitals, nursing homes, and other sites based on the immediate need for island residents.

Two weeks in, RNs reported that many people had yet to receive any food, water, and other supplies from FEMA or any other agency. Others stood in line for hours in blistering heat waiting for desperately needed water and food. They cited houses with roofs blown off and soaked interiors with dangerous black mold growing that creates respiratory distress and illness, and a breakout of leptospirosis, a dangerous bacterial disease that had already claimed lives.

“Our nurses have seen firsthand, on the ground, even in the past few days, that FEMA aid, which was far too slow and inadequate to begin with, is still necessary to save lives,” stated Cathy Kennedy, RN, lead volunteer for RNRN’s deployment in 2017, which dispatched nurses across the island.

“What nurses witness daily,” said NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo at the time “is the harsh reality of a woefully inadequate government response and the brutal, inhumane impact on the Puerto Rican people. People are still without food and water. That poses an enormous humanitarian threat in terms of disease, life, and death and who succumbs first.”

“When we arrived we were really the first responders there,” recalled Kennedy, now a co-president of NNU. “Puerto Rico is part of the United States. We never saw such a lack of basic necessities. The power grid was down. There was no access to get the medications people needed for their blood pressure, their diabetes medication, they couldn’t even keep vials of insulin because there was no refrigeration. Everybody felt like they were thrown away and treated like second class citizens.

“They were really happy to see all of the nurses and doctors, and said we were the first ones to come to their homes. A lot of our work was getting water, food, and some meds to them. We were not only the first responders, we also worked to show people how to navigate FEMA. It was unconscionable,” remembered Kennedy, contrasting Trump’s response to how quickly the Biden/Harris administration was responding to provide assistance following Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

NNU volunteers documented their experiences. In Rio Grande, outside San Juan, “we set up a clinic at a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) site. People lined up for blocks. But FEMA was only handing out papers which need to be filled out in order that they might receive some reimbursement eventually,” reported Erin Carerra, RN.

RN volunteers in 2017, recently back from Puerto Rico hurricane relief efforts, briefed members of Congress and Senator Bernie Sanders on the public health crisis that was taking place on the island due to an inadequate response by the Trump administration.(Photo: National Nurses United)

“We did home visits with public health liaisons who identify those in need and help them do basic blood pressure checks, blood sugar checks, refill their meds, etc. They have already had chronic diseases going on and now their environment is full of hazardous materials and sanitation is so poor. They could not get a hold of their doctors due to closure of many clinics in the area,” said RN Hau Cheng.

With another RNRN team, RN Kent Savary described how “they went to a man’s home. He had no roof, all his belonging were soaking wet due to the rain and no tarp. He is living in a garage beneath where he's in a 3x3 area. It’s an impoverished area with no access to clean water. There’s black mold built up in most of the houses on the second floor, which can cause upper respiratory infections, renal failure, and scarring of the lungs. There is a lack of relief communication and no FEMA in sight. Nebulizers are needed for asthma patients, but there is nowhere to plug in. FEMA is demanding folks apply online or via their cellphone app and provide bank account info by November 30 or they get no aid. Most people don't have cell phones, cell service, power or laptops.”

By late October 2017, NNU was alerting the press to the disastrous conditions. "Our people are being left to suffer, and the nurses hope that our elected officials work to change this before people die," said Kennedy, who had recently returned from the island.

“People were so desperate for water they started drinking it from the river, where rodents had died during the storms," Kennedy reported, citing concern about the spread of water born leptospirosis. "People are going to get sicker. What the nurses have uncovered, is that there’s still standing water. There’s black mold. There are homes that have no roofs. These are people’s homes, and they want to stay in their homes. And their health is at risk."

On October 26, 2017, RNRN volunteers back from Puerto Rico joined a Capitol Hill press conference with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Nydia Velázquez and other members of Congress to call for increased aid to confront the ongoing humanitarian and health care crisis in Puerto Rico.

“It pains us to know that for many Puerto Ricans, the volunteers on this deployment provided the only aid they received—and were a temporary buffer between life and death. If our volunteer nurses can provide this aid, how has our government, with all of its resources, been unable to do the same?” asked Kennedy. “While we are so proud of our nurses for stepping up to help, even sourcing food and water for desperate Puerto Ricans, using the nurses’ own resources. Their service begs a question: Where is our government?” asked Castillo.

A NNU report in later October of 2017 noted that one million people lacked access to running water in those weeks following the storm. The report also cataloged a daily shortfall of 1.8 million meals, devastated healthcare infrastructure and disease outbreaks, and concluded that “the response to the crisis in Puerto Rico from the U.S. federal government has been unacceptable for the wealthiest country in the world.”

Four years later, in another press conference citing the still disastrous recovery, Rep. Velazquez reported that “Puerto Ricans are experiencing blackouts almost daily” and “thousands of homes (still covered) with blue tarps. This is happening in America.”

“And it was painful,” said Cruz this week following the insults against Puerto Ricans once again from Trump, “because you think, ‘My God, it’s not like this person hasn’t showed who he is to the world.”

“Racism has always been present, but they feel emboldened (under Trump) about them and us,” says Kennedy today. “It’s very divisive, disrespectful language that shows hate. I went into nursing to provide care and compassion. When you have someone running for President who has such disregard for people other than himself, we can’t have that. I struggle to understand why anyone would vote for him.”