5 things to know about Puerto Rico 3 months after Hurricane Maria

Life has improved for many people, but not everyone.

By Alexia Fernández Campbell@AlexiaCampbellalexia@vox.com  Dec 23, 2017, 8:10am EST

Three months have passed since Hurricane Maria's 155-mph winds plowed through Puerto Rico leaving the island severely crippled and desperate for help.

The storm — which knocked out all power and most cell phone service — was the worst disaster to ever hit the Caribbean island, home to 3.4 million American citizens.

The reaction from the White House was one of the ugliest moments of President Trump's administration this year. When Trump visited Puerto Rico two weeks after the storm, he suggested that Maria wasn’t “a real catastrophe” like Hurricane Katrina. And instead of offering condolences, he reminded Puerto Rico about how much money it was costing the federal government to respond to the crisis.

He then walked around throwing paper towel supplies to hurricane survivors, and spent weeks insulting the mayor of San Juan on Twitter after she accused the federal government of abandoning Puerto Rico.

Helping Puerto Rico recover is a gargantuan task — FEMA has called it the "largest federal response to a disaster" in American history. But this response has also been unusually painful to watch, with the shady contracting deals, a drinking water crisis, and the army of federal responders stretched too thin to effectively get help to everyone quickly. Congress was slow to respond too. Many lawmakers visited the island, but Congressional leaders have done little to help the island beyond voting to add more money to FEMA’s disaster-relief fund.

The island is limping back to some semblance of normalcy as Christmas approaches. But hundreds of thousands have fled as the conditions fail to improve. More than a third of the island still has no power, and federal workers are still sending food and water supplies to some towns.

Here are five important things to know about Puerto Rico three months after Maria:

1) Electricity probably won’t be entirely restored before May
The single biggest problem facing Puerto Rico is still the lack of power. Gov. Ricardo Rosselló promised that 95 percent of the island would have power by now. Only 65 percent does.

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https://www.vox.com/2017/12/23/16795342/puerto-rico-maria-christmas