We read news daily from international organizations addressing refugee situations around the world, appealing for help from the U.S. government and our citizens. It might come as a shock to American readers that one of the leading global organizations advocating for refugees, Refugees International (RI) has issued a field report on the United States and its response to the crisis in part of its territory — Puerto Rico.
The report, written by Alice Thomas, RI’s Climate Displacement Program Manager is entitled, “Meeting the Urgent Needs of Hurricane Maria Survivors in Puerto Rico”
In late November, Refugees International (RI) conducted a mission to Puerto Rico to assess the protection and assistance needs of the most vulnerable hurricane survivors. This was RI’s first mission within the United States in the organization’s 38-year history. Our goal was to provide insights and expertise based on RI’s long history of advocating for improvements in responses to international humanitarian crises and our experience in similar acute, sudden-onset, weather-related disasters in foreign countries, including island nations.
At the time of RI’s mission to Puerto Rico, more than two months after the storm hit, our team encountered a response by federal and Puerto Rican authorities that was still largely uncoordinated and poorly implemented and that was prolonging the humanitarian emergency on the ground. While food and bottled water are now widely available and hospitals and clinics back up and running, thousands of people still lack sustainable access to potable water and electricity and dry, safe places to sleep. Moreover, Maria survivors are encountering enormous challenges navigating the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) bureaucratic and opaque assistance process and lack sufficient information on whether, when, and how they will be assisted.
The horrendous conditions that tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans - many of whom are poor and elderly - continue to endure require the Trump Administration and Congress to prioritize needs and corresponding response programs. FEMA and Puerto Rican authorities, with support from the highest levels of the U.S. federal government, must immediately adopt a more streamlined, coordinated, transparent, and effective strategy that includes, among other things, ensuring that survivors have access to safe and secure accommodations while longer-term recovery programs get up and running. In doing so, international best practices endorsed by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and other international humanitarian agencies should be brought to bear both in Puerto Rico and in future U.S. disasters. In addition, affected populations must be provided with better and easier-to-comprehend information on FEMA’s assistance process. Grappling with questions around Puerto Rico’s medium- to longer-term recovery requires Congress’s and the Trump Administration’s focus and attention - but it will take time. In the meantime, we cannot leave our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico without adequate assistance and support.
(read the full report here)
Key in the report are the recommendations, which will require action by our elected officials. I suggest that you email and call your Congressional representatives, asking them if they have read the report (provide a link) what they think about the recommendations and how they plan to act on them. They all have staffers that take on these tasks — put them to work!
From last month — RI in Loiza.
Some background on Refugees International
Refugees International was started in 1979 as a citizens’ movement to protect Indochinese refugees. Since then, we have expanded to become a leading advocacy organization that provokes action from global leaders to resolve refugee crises. We do not accept government or UN funding, allowing our advocacy to be fearless and independent.
Field Work
Each year, Refugees International conducts approximately twelve field missions to identify displaced people’s needs for basic services such as food, water, health care, housing, access to education and protection from harm. Based on our field-based knowledge of humanitarian emergencies, we successfully challenge policy makers and aid agencies to improve the lives of displaced people around the world. Where there are needs, we witness what is lacking, we present solutions and we demand action.
Included in the report is a small chart — comparing US response to other disasters.
While every disaster is unique, comparisons can nonetheless be illuminating. In this case, comparing the assets and manpower devoted to the response to
Hurricane Maria in the initial days to those deployed to several foreign disasters suggests that senior federal officials had not fully grasped the challenges in Puerto Rico. The absence of a more rapid and forceful military response to the catastrophe in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, was called into question by military experts with experience responding to foreign disasters, including Lt. Gen. P.K. “Ken” Keen, the three-star general who commanded the U.S. military effort in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. ”I think it’s a fair ask why we’re not seeing a similar command and response.
NPR reported FEMA’s response to the report:
Responding to the Refugees International report, FEMA agreed that coordination of efforts in disaster response is vital. But FEMA said Puerto Rico's devastation by the hurricane presented a difficult situation. "More than 1,000 nautical miles from the mainland United States with an already fragile infrastructure and facing challenging economic circumstances presented communication and logistical challenges unique to the situation."
My response to their response — Haiti had a more fragile infrastructure, more challenging economic circumstances than Puerto Rico, and the difference in nautical mileage between the two places is minimal.
The 15 page report (which includes quite a few photos) does not take a lot of time to read. Would like to hear your thoughts and responses.
Their conclusion is not just about Puerto Rico (my bold):
In addition to failing American citizens, the problematic response to the disaster in Puerto Rico is in many ways a reflection of the numerous ways the United States government, and Americans themselves, are not sufficiently prepared to address the increased frequency and force of extreme weather events and other adverse effects of climate change.
Immediately and over time, U.S. officials, supported by the Congress, must do better by their fellow Americans in Puerto Rico in responding to the disaster borne by Hurricane Maria and must better equip federal agencies, territories, states, and localities for the challenge of building resilience.
It is our responsibility — not only to Puerto Rico but to ourselves and all our fellow citizens to elect to Congress representatives who do not deny climate science and who are willing to pass legislation and apply funds to building for a better future — for us all.
A reminder: