The Washington Post - 29.08.2019

A2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 , 2019

HAPPENING TODAY

For the latest updates all day, visit

washingtonpost.com.

8:30 a.m. | The Labor
Department issues jobless claims
for the week ended Aug. 24, which
are expected to come in at
213,000, up from 209,000 the
previous week. Visit
washingtonpost.com/business for
details.

6 p.m. | Friends of the National
World War II Memorial holds the
75th anniversary commemoration
of the liberation of Paris from Nazi
Germany. For developments, visit
washingtonpost.com/national.

8 p.m. | The Clemson Tigers,
winners of last season’s College
Football Playoff National
Championship, play the Georgia
Te ch Yellow Jackets in the season
opener for both teams. Follow the
game at postsports.com.

CORRECTIONS

l An article about home security
cameras in today’s Local Living
section, which was printed in
advance, misstates the first name
of a Miami homeowner. He is
Miguel Suro, not Michael Suro.

l An Aug. 25 A-section article
about Brazil being suspicious of
global attention on the fires in
the Amazon incorrectly
attributed a quote to Al Gore. A
spokesman for Gore said that he
never said, “Contrary to what
Brazilians think, the Amazon is
not their property, it belongs to
all of us.” The quote has often
been misattributed to Gore. The
spokesman said Gore opposed
the sentiment.

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BY MORIAH BALINGIT

Schools in Puerto Rico and the

U.S. V irgin Islands closed Wednes-

day as they braced for Hurricane

Dorian, a storm that threatened t o

wreak havoc on the island territo-

ries that already suffered exten-

sive damage from Hurricane Ma-

ria.

Dorian i ntensified from a tropi-

cal storm to a hurricane Wednes-

day afternoon as it passed o ver the

Virgin Islands.

It appeared to spare Puerto

Rico o n Wednesday and pelted the

U.S. V irgin Islands with rain.

Officials in Florida were also

watching the s torm closely, but no

schools there had closed in ad-

vance of Dorian. Forecasters said

the storm had the potential to

grow to a Category 3 storm before

reaching the mainland United

States. The storm represents the

first major test for the Caribbean

communities s ince Hurricane Ma-

ria, which caused unprecedented

damage on the islands and result-

ed in thousands of deaths when it

landed in 2017.

Puerto Rico’s public schools

serve about 300,000 children,

making it one o f the l argest s chool

systems in the United States. The

U.S. Virgin Islands school system

serves a little more than 10,

students. Officials in Puerto Rico

announced that schools and gov-

ernment offices will be open

Thursday.

Danette Quiñones, a school

principal in Rio Grande, east of

San Juan, the capital, said the

storm had the potential to churn

up bad memories for students

who survived Hurricane Maria.

“We get nervous,” Quiñones

said, s hortly before the lights went

out a t her h ome. Before H urricane

Maria, she oversaw a high school

of about 300 students. But the

decline in student population led

the school system to consolidate

the h igh school with a n intermedi-

ate school. The new school, serv-

ing children from sixth to 12th

grade, has only about 400 stu-

dents. In some municipalities,

schools were serving as shelters

for people seeking to escape the

storm’s w rath.

Puerto Rico’s education system

has struggled for years, hit first by

an economic crisis that forced it to

shutter many of its schools. Hurri-

cane Maria wrought damage on

school buildings, leaving some

children out of class for weeks or

months. Thousands of schoolchil-

dren left t he i sland after t he s torm,

seeking a more stable education.

Their teachers followed, many of

them fleeing damage and chasing

higher p ay.

More recently, Julia Keleher,

who formerly headed the island’s

education department, was ar-

rested on federal corruption

charges, along with several others.

The arrests, as well as the publica-

tion of vulgar chats between for-

mer governor Ricardo Rosselló

and his cabinet, helped propel

large p rotests that led to Rosselló’s

resignation.

[email protected]

Caribbean communities close schools in lead-up to hurricane

Classes in Puerto Rico

to resume Thursday after

first test since Maria

NORTH CAROLINA

Student accused

of planning shooting

A North Carolina university

student arrested with guns and

ammunition in his dorm room

had studied mass shootings and

was making plans to kill his

roommate and himself if he

didn’t get into a fraternity,

prosecutors said Wednesday.

A High Point police statement

said officers responded Tuesday

to reports of a student with two

firearms and ammunition in a

High Point University dorm.

University officials said another

student reported him.

Police said Paul A. Steber, a

freshman from Boston, was

charged with two felony counts

of having a gun on campus and a

charge of making threats of mass

violence.

A prosecutor said Steber, 19,

had bought the guns within the

past week.

— Associated Press

NEVADA

$3 million for woman

in wrongful conviction

A woman who spent 35 years

in prison for a murder she didn’t

commit before she was

exonerated by DNA evidence on

a crime-scene cigarette butt will

get $3 million in a partial

settlement of a federal civil

rights lawsuit, her lawyer said

Wednesday.

Cathy Woods, 68, was released

from prison in 2015 when new

evidence linked the 1976 killing

of Reno college student Michelle

Mitchell to an Oregon inmate,

Rodney Halbower, who has since

been convicted of two San

Francisco Bay area slayings.

Woods was the longest-ever

wrongfully incarcerated woman

in U.S. history, according to the

National Registry of

Exonerations.

— Associated Press

WEST VIRGINIA

Legislator charged

with solicitation

A West Virginia state senator

has been charged with soliciting

a prostitute.

Sen. Mike Maroney (R) turned

himself in and was arraigned

Wednesday morning, a Marshall

County court clerk said. He has

pleaded not guilty and paid a

$4,500 bond.

Maroney exchanged text

messages to discuss prices and

set up meetings with a woman

who has admitted to being a

prostitute, according to a

criminal complaint. He also sent

her a picture of himself smiling

along with the message “now can

I stop by” after she said she

wouldn’t meet without a photo

of him.

Police have been investigating

the woman, Cortnie Clark, and

say two people have already

pleaded guilty to soliciting her

for sex. She has been criminally

charged and has told police she

became a prostitute so she could

buy heroin, according to the

complaint. Her attorney didn’t

immediately return a message

left at his office.

— Associated Press

DIGEST

BY AMY GORDON,

JHONI JACKSON

AND ARELIS R. HERNÁNDEZ

vieques, puerto rico — Hurri-

cane Dorian appeared to spare

Puerto Rico on Wednesday, weav-

ing an erratic path that side-

swiped the archipelago and

pounded the U.S. Virgin Islands

with rain, but didn’t ravage the

U.S. territories that are still recov-

ering from Hurricane Maria’s de-

struction f rom 2017.

The Category 1 storm, which

was headed out into the Atlantic

Ocean late Wednesday, was on its

way to becoming the first major

hurricane to threaten the East

Coast of the United States this

season, with forecasters predict-

ing a direct hit on Florida, perhaps

on Labor Day, when the storm is

expected to have reached Catego-

ry 3 status.

Puerto Rico dodged a wor-

st-case-scenario direct hit after

growing from a tropical s torm ear-

lier in the day, but some residents

lost power amid winds that

topped 75 mph, and some areas

flooded as intense rainfall pelted

thousands o f homes t hat still d on’t

have adequate roofing to keep

families a nd p roperties dry.

“This is not Maria,” said Gov.

Wanda Vázquez Garced at an af-

ternoon news conference in San

Juan as she updated residents on

the shifting track of a storm that

has d efied prediction.

The threat of a major storm this

week served as a catalyst for a

faster, more efficient rollout of

emergency preparedness plans

and resources by a local govern-

ment wary of repeating the mis-

takes of the past — and hoping to

win back the public trust lost in

the a ftermath of H urricane Maria.

Hundreds of power utility worker

brigades were staged ahead of

time in strategic locations. Huge

amounts of supplies were stocked

and r eady. Scores of public schools

became shelters

But vulnerabilities persist in

the U.S. territory, w here memories

of death and destruction remain

raw and where promised federal

funds aimed at mitigating catas-

trophe still have not arrived. Local

communities have now estab-

lished their o wn p rotocols f or pro-

tecting themselves — and each

other — in the wake of feeling

abandoned by Puerto Rico and

federal officials during Maria.

When Dorian’s projected path

unexpectedly swerved northward

late Tuesday, P uerto Rico’s e astern

islands of Culebra and Vieques fell

squarely in the cone of uncertain-

ty, triggering fears that the strug-

gling communities would once

again be cut off from the big is-

land, where resources are concen-

trated.

Mark Martin Bras, operations

captain for the area nonprofit or-

ganization ViequesLove, said

community m embers on the small

island just off the big island’s east

coast created a communication

network using 32 radios to keep

everyone informed of storm con-

ditions in real time. With dona-

tions and support from nonprofit

organizations on the U.S. main-

land, they bought the technology

and trained volunteers, connect-

ing them to other residents,

church leaders, emergency re-

sponders and businesses.

As Dorian swirled nearer, vol-

unteers were activated. They

learned t he local shelter was with-

out a working generator and

pulled together resources to bring

a new source of power.

“These are private citizens

working t o make sure we feel more

protected than we were during

Maria,” Martin Bras said. “We

dodged a bullet but we are not

where we need to be in Vieques.

The local state government still

hasn’t answered questions about

water, power and transportation

that are critical to being prepared

for t he next one.”

Pastor Urayoan Silva of the Fe

Que Transforma congregation has

for years been serving the local

Vieques community, where the

co st of living is higher and mari-

time transportation to the main

island is unreliable. His church

established a food bank and sup-

plies clothes to families in the

center of the i sland. But after Hur-

ricanes M aria and Irma, S ilva r eal-

ized the group needed to enhance

its operation to help protect peo-

ple f rom the n ext storm.

The church took over an aban-

doned school and, with help from

outside donors and the communi-

ty, rebuilt it into a recovery center

and s upply warehouse powered by

solar energy. E very b arrio n ow has

a leader with a radio to stay con-

nected and a ccess to a water f iltra-

tion system should the electric

system that supplies power to lo-

cal w ater pumps f ail.

“If a hurricane comes, I have

instant access to information to

know how my community is do-

ing,” S ilva said.

On the main island of Puerto

Rico, Dorian turned into a rain

event, allowing island officials to

breathe a sigh of relief. They told

residents they would remain a lert,

but the power grid appeared to

withstand Dorian’s gusts and re-

mained largely operational

throughout Wednesday. Officials

said that schools and government

offices will be open T hursday.

“We have t o be cautious and not

let our guard down,” s aid FEMA’s

federal coordinating officer, Nick

Russo, who monitored the slow-

ing storm through the night amid

concerns the h urricane was i nten-

sifying as it heads toward Florida.

FEMA officials said they are

watching and waiting to see if t hey

can start demobilizing in Puerto

Rico and shift teams to the Sun-

shine S tate.

Before and during the storm’s

trek through t he C aribbean, Presi-

dent Trump took to Twitter to

criticize Puerto Rico as “one of the

most corrupt places on earth,” e n-

couraging locals to thank FEMA

“unlike last time” and taunting

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín

Cruz.

“Congress approved Billions of

Dollars last time, more than any-

place else has ever gotten ...” the

president tweeted. “A nd by the

way, I’m the best thing that’s ever

happened to Puerto Rico!”

Trump’s comments were met

with little attention from the gov-

ernor’s mansion, where Vázquez

Garced has been communicating

with administration officials in re-

cent weeks. But Cruz responded

by telling CNN that the president

has a “vanity complex” and is at-

tempting to distract the public

from his administration’s diver-

sion of FEMA f unding t oward bor-

der s ecurity.

“This is not about him,” Cruz

wrote on Twitter. “This is not

about politics. This is about s aving

lives.”

Puerto Rico’s resident commis-

sioner, Rep. Jenniffer González-

Colón, who has a voice but n o vote

in Congress, responded to the

president’s comments, s aying hur-

ricanes obviously are not the is-

land’s fault.

“This is a moment for everyone

to stand up and help our fellow

Americans suffering from a natu-

ral disaster,” said González-Colón,

who is a Republican and i s expect-

ed to run for governor of Puerto

Rico in 2020 as the candidate for

the island’s statehood party.

“Thank you for quickly dispatch-

ing personnel and declaring a

state of emergency in Puerto Rico.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)

on Wednesday declared a state of

emergency for more t han two doz-

en counties due to “the threat

posed b y Hurricane D orian.” J ared

Moskowitz, d irector of the F lorida

Division of Emergency Manage-

ment, said in a statement that

every resident along the state’s

east coast — from Miami to Jack-

sonville — should be prepared and

monitor forecasts because “the

track of this storm has been

changing and can continue to

change rapidly.”

Back in Puerto Rico, municipal-

ities in the southeast and north-

east such as To a Baja, Canovanas

and Naguabo are still susceptible

to dangerous flooding from bloat-

ed lakes and rivers. Many of those

communities were targeted for

federally funded resiliency proj-

ects to build and reinforce levees

and systems that would help miti-

gate the worst effects of the flood-

ing on roads and neighborhoods,

said Deepak Lamba-Nieves, lead

researcher with the San Juan-

based think tank C enter f or a New

Economy.

Congress imposed new restric-

tions and requirements on some

disaster aid funding earlier this

summer after two top-ranking

members of the previous Puerto

Rican administration were

charged in a public corruption

investigation involving federal

funds. That, coupled with other

delays in the disbursement of the

bulk of $42 billion in a ppropriated

aid, has stalled Puerto Rico’s re-

construction.

The local government, whose

finances a re m anaged b y a federal-

ly appointed fiscal oversight

board, does not have t he resources

to tackle such projects on its own

in many cases, experts say. The

oversight board authorized

$260 million in aggregate funds

from a reserve account for Puerto

Rico’s emergency-related expens-

es late Wednesday.

“These communities are in dire

situations, and the government

has done little to solve their struc-

tural and geographically based

problems,” Lamba-Nieves said.

“The combination of flood zones

and poverty in these places is a

recipe for future disaster.”

With more than two months

left in the Atlantic hurricane sea-

son, Puerto Rico could still face

another emergency.

Dorian was a “great dry run,”

said longtime Vieques resident

and community leader Paul Lut-

ton. “Hopefully we will learn

things from it that will make us

better prepared for a big one.”

[email protected]

Hernández reported from

Washington. Gordon is a freelance

journalist based in Vieques, and

Jackson is a freelance journalist

based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Dorian surges but largely misses Puerto Rico

The Category 1 hurricane

brings pounding rain as

it heads toward Florida

ERIC ROJAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

People gather at the coast hours before the storm enters in Patillas, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday. After

sideswiping the U.S. territory, Hurricane Dorian is poised to threaten the United States’ East Coast.

RICARDO ARDUENGO/REUTERS

Retail store employees in Humacao, Puerto Rico, install metal

storm shutters as Dorian approaches, bringing wind and rain.

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