To the extent that a death toll serves as a rough measure of the severity of a natural disaster, we learned on Tuesday that a part of the United States experienced a disaster that was as much as 70 times more severe than had been reported—or understood by most Americans. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz made a vital point when she said Tuesday, “These deaths and the negligence that contributed to them cannot be forgotten. This was, and continues to be, a violation of our human rights.”
Yet, according to Media Matters, the nation’s cable networks had trouble focusing on the staggering news about Puerto Rico because they were all wrapped up with Roseanne. “Cable news covered Roseanne for over 10 hours. They covered Hurricane Maria’s death toll in Puerto Rico for just over 30 minutes,” explained a review by the group, which noted that Fox News devoted a mere 48 seconds to the news from Puerto Rico. (our emphasis)Four thousand six hundred and forty-five fellow Americans perished from September 20 through December 31, 2017, as a result of Hurricane Maria (a "conservative" number according to the report's authors). That compares with 1,833 who perished in Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
It's not just Puerto Rico that's suffered terribly and has been largely ignored. Never forget your fellow Americans of the Virgin Islands, who absorbed Hurricane Irma just before Hurricane Maria hit:
With its health care system crippled, the Virgin Islands government and federal relief agencies decided to move patients, and Correa was flown to nearby Puerto Rico. Less than two weeks later, with Hurricane Maria approaching, some of the medical evacuees were moved again, this time to the mainland.
In total, more than 1,000 medical evacuees have been sent off the Virgin Islands, including critically ill patients, dialysis patients, people in nursing homes, and their caregivers, Davis says. The National Disaster Medical System, a federally coordinated partnership between the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Defense, and Veterans Affairs, helped cover the cost of care and housing for 803 of the evacuees. The costs for the other 200 individuals has been picked up by the government, private insurance, or other sources, Davis says, and medical evacuations are still ongoing.
The majority of medical evacuees were sent to Atlanta, with some elsewhere on the mainland or in Puerto Rico. Nine months after Hurricane Irma, the whereabouts of many medical evacuees are unknown. And the Virgin Islands, still struggling to rebuild in the aftermath of the hurricanes, can’t accommodate all of those who want to come back home. (our emphasis)If we had a competent administration, and if we had a media that could compartmentalize the celebrity outrage- of- the- day as well as the shiny objects the Very Stable Genius and his co- conspirators strew around them every day, perhaps more attention could be brought to bear on the human disaster that's still afflicting our fellow Americans, and with that attention, focused action. It's too late for many of our fellow citizens, but the desperation of many thousands of others remains.
That's what matters.
BONUS: More here and here.
