If you go to FEMA’s website detailing the federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, you’ll probably come away thinking that Puerto Ricans are in good hands and the relief effort is going well.
Of course, that’s because they removed a pair of noteworthy statistics that might damage that perception.
The Washington Post reported today that FEMA removed statistics about the availability of drinking water and electricity in Puerto Rico from its website.
More than 30 miles of roadway have been cleared, up from about 20 miles earlier in the week. About 65 percent of grocery stores have reopened, along with nearly all hospitals and dialysis centers. And 64 percent of wastewater treatment plants are working on generator power.
The Spanish-language site maintained by the office of the Puerto Rican governor, Ricardo Roselló, shows that just over half of the island has access to clean drinking water, and only ten percent of it has access to electricity at the time of this writing. These statistics show that recovery efforts in Puerto Rico aren’t all sunshine and rainbows—significant progress hasn’t even been made on getting Puerto Rican citizens clean water.
Trump has, in fact, made a concerted effort to blame Puerto Rico itself for the slowness of the recovery, pointing the finger at everything from their outdated power grid to the attitude of the people themselves.