Rubén Díaz Jr. On The State Of Puerto Rico One Year After Hurricane Maria

Bronx Borough president Rubén Díaz Jr. talked about the state of Puerto Rico one year after Hurricane Maria.

“Where we are now is that we have frustrations,” he explained. “You go there now and you — and it still looks like the hurricane just hit a couple of weeks before. Everything from people not having jobs because the total economy and industries are ruined, to folks not knowing what to do whether they pay the mortgage, if they have a job, or pay for repairs.”

Díaz Jr., believes that the federal government did not respond to Puerto Rico’s crisis like they have in the past for U.S. states, or even for foreign nations. He stated that it is “the most egregious example or either governmental ineptitude of intentional government neglect that Americans have ever experienced.”

Puerto Rico’s official death toll estimate for Hurricane Maria reached 2,975 in July.

“I believe that blood is on the hands of this president,” Diaz Jr. said. “Why is it that they’re treating Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens, and then for the president to say that it was an unsung success? Who in their right mind, what sane individual would ever think that losing 3,000 lives, in any way, shape, or form, was a success?”

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