TIME October 9, 2017Stillness is drenched in humidity and scorched
by a sun blasting down from the clear skies
that will eventually follow a hurricane. But
on this island of 3.4 million people, the quiet
after Hurricane Maria had a distinct feeling
of absence, an inattention bordering on
obliviousness.
The fifth strongest storm ever to strike the
U.S. hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 with stronger
winds than Irma brought to Florida and the
kind of rain that Hurricane Harvey dumped
on Houston. It made landfall on a Wednesday,
and in the digital age, its effects were well
documented by Friday: parts of San Juan, the
capital of this U.S. territory, were underwater.
The verdant island was stripped of its foliage.
U.S. citizens lapped water from natural
springs. But on the mainland, the topics of
the day were a special election in Alabama,
the latest GOP stab at repealing Obamacare
and a fight President Donald Trump had
picked with the NFL.
“Puerto Rico, which is part of the United
States, can turn into a humanitarian crisis,” its
governor, Ricardo Rosselló, warned on Sept. 25.
One day later, a poll showed that almost half
of Americans did not know that Puerto Ricans
are American citizens. “When we speak of a
catastrophe, everyone must be treated equally.”
After winning plaudits for their smooth,
coordinated responses in Texas and Florida this
past summer, the feds were not exactly caught
flat-footed in the Caribbean. Two weeks before
Maria hit Puerto Rico, which was preparing for
Hurricane Irma to hit, FEMA had about 124
staff members deployed there and in the Virgin
Islands. Water, meals, cots and blankets were
pre-positioned in San Juan.
But the scale of the devastation—combined
with the inattention of the White House—
generated a tableau that critics described as
evidence of neglect or worse. Pushed onto the
defensive, the White House hastily arranged aTHE QUIET
AFTER A
STORM
IS A REAL
THING.