Blaz Sending More Aid to Puerto Rico

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that he was sending more city relief workers to the hurricane-ravaged island of Puerto Rico, citing an “insufficient” response to the crisis by the Trump Administration.

“Help did not come the way it should of,” said de Blasio in a press conference at the New York City Emergency Management Warehouse. “President Trump suggested that there is something wrong with the Puerto Rican people…the only thing wrong is the United States response to this crisis.”

The city will dispatch 53 additional crisis workers to the island territory. A total of 158 workers have been deployed to the island since mid-September. The mayor is deploying 22 workers from the city Department of Buildings and  Housing Preservation Department, who will inspect damaged buildings, while 31 workers from the Department of Sanitation will assist the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency.

Drop-off sites that are affiliated with the Emergency Management Warehouse in Bushwick are only accepting donations of diapers, feminine hygiene products, baby food and batteries.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito also criticized federal officials for giving the island  inadequate support and resources.

“Hurricane Maria has left the Puerto Rican people in complete devastation, and they continue to be in need of as many resources as possible,” Viverito said. “It is unfathomable the federal government is not doing enough to help American citizens.”

Darma V. Diaz, a delegate to the state committee in Brooklyn said she was “disgusted” by President Trump’s response of throwing a roll of paper towels into a crowd.

“The reality is the less affluent neighbors are taking longer to get to,” said Diaz, who spoke to her father in Caguas, Puerto Rico for about five seconds before a service outage disconnected their call. “It’s disgraceful. How do you go into a press conference and throw a Bounty (paper towel)?”

Diaz added, “We are not second-class citizens…Puerto Ricans have fought for their lives.”