Fellow Citizens

In late September of 85’ I was attending graduate school at George Washington University and living with four roommates in a large aged house off McArthur Blvd. in Northwest DC. All of us were 20-something students of one form or another, given to garnering women’s approval, a good buzz and higher education in about that order.

This particular afternoon’s happy hour festivities found us fully focused on the local newscast and hurricane Gloria, a monstrous Category 4 storm barreling headlong toward Ocean City, MD. Of course it took precious little imagination to surmise the damage such a landfall would wreck on what, despite the trappings of full development and community, was merely a barrier island, designed by nature to sacrifice itself under such conditions.

Reporting from Ocean City, WRC reporter IJ Hudson conveyed all manner of preparations taking place for the approaching doom, most notably a mandatory evacuation. Hudson finished his segment by telling anchor Jim Vance that he could rest assured “only the National Guard and a few crazy reporters” remained in the resort town.  “Jim, anyone with any common sense is long gone,” Hudson promised.

Slumped on the couch with my preferred Miller High Life, I snorted with knowing disdain at his pronouncement. My roomies, all hailing from outside  the Mid-Atlantic region, asked what I was incredulous about. Having more than a dozen friends, who had turned Ocean City from our summer stomping grounds to their year-round escape from reality, as fall surf eclipsed adult responsibility on their list of priorities – and most all thoroughly replete in the common sense department – I flat out guaranteed Hudson’s declaration was full of crap. My new friends,  unfamiliar with my misanthropic cadre of childhood homies, collectively doubted my veracity. After all, the wrath of God seemed only 18 hours away; staying was suicide.

I sensed financial opportunity and bet what I had in my pocket… er, $13, that I could make a call to OC and one of my boyz would answer.  Soon our disgusting, beer-soaked, resin stained excuse for a cocktail table was resplendent in crumbled bills and loose change. I ran excitedly upstairs to my drawer to get the tattered little notebook I used for phone numbers; I figured three would be the deepest I’d have to go, since businesses appeared to be closed.

We all huddled around the old rotary phone somebody had salvaged when we moved in, and I dialed one of my closest Eastern Shore associates,  whose 7-year colligiate saga at Salisbury University, 30 miles west of OC, was nearing an end. We were all around the receiver when, after several rings, an irritated voice growled hello. “Orem?!,” I asked pumping my fist and celebrating my windfall, “what are you doing?” “Trying to take a nap. What do you want?” “Nothing! Go back to sleep!”  I hung up in triumph, pocketing my score as my flabbergasted friends shook their heads. Life was very good!

Miraculously, God intervened and steered Gloria north, sparing OC and  weakening significantly before a northeast landfall. Yet and still, my buddy, Billy, whose slumber I interrupted, later recounted walking to the beach in the face of 60 plus mph winds that threatened to lift him off his feet. When I inquired what he thought 140 mph winds would have done, he shrugged and muttered something about weathermen always being wrong. Who could question such sound wisdom?

The almighty was less vigilant last year regarding Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria hit it square, meandering the length of the island with every bit of its Category 4 fury. When it was finished, 100 percent of residents were without power…think about that a minute. Virtually the whole of the island’s infrastructure was in shambles.

A year later Puerto Rico is nowhere near back to normal. Power only recently fully returned, outages still a daily occurance. Roads are in terrible shape, with many parts of the island still inaccessible. Worst of all, almost 3000 people died as a result of Maria, most from health conditions rendered critical due to the damage suffered by the island’s support network. Unavailable medications, medical devices made inoperable by months long blackouts, inaccessible critical care, lack of clean drinking water (20 percent of residents were forced to drink from “natural” sources), failed emergency response due to downed communications, relentless heat, the list goes on and on.

To hear our President, Puerto Rico’s President, tell it, the government response he led was well oiled but “under appreciated,” hobbled by an aged electrical grid and “incompetent” local leaders. The island’s residents beg to differ.

In a recent Post/Kaiser poll over 80% of Puerto Ricans expressed dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of Maria’s aftermath. To be fair the island’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló didn’t do much better, but the discrepancy between Trump’s self-congratulations and sentiments on the ground could not be starker. In fact, 1 in 4 Puerto Rican’s are considering moving away permanently, such is their pessimism of future prospects.

When the corpse of this disasterous Presidency is picked through, presuming we are still a going concern, no disgrace will exceed Trump’s indifference to our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. It incapsulates every rancid aspect of his soulless reproach of the job he never wanted: lazy indifference to adequate preparation, disregard for expert advice, zero fealty to facts that counter his self-serving narrative, and worst of all a pathological refusal to accept responsibility for the outcomes of his policies.

Yesterday, when he gaslit the emerging Puerto Rican death toll, labeling it a creation by Democrats to hurt him politically, the descent to the bottom was finally reached; it simply can’t be possible to go further. With Trump, it’s not just the buck doesn’t stop here, it’s who the hell says the buck ever really existed in the first place.

I have yet to hear the President call Puerto Ricans citizens of this nation. Frankly, that might be just as well for them….who really wants to admit any association with Trump anyway. Yet and still, their experience should only strengthen our bonds, as well as our determination to aid in some small measure their rebuilding efforts, which this White House has never cared a wit about. After all, aren’t we on the mainland as leaderless as they are? BC