This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here. When Hurricane Ian hit Central Florida last fall, Milly Santiago already knew what it was like to lose everything to a hurricane, to leave your home, to start over. For her, that was the outcome of Hurricane Maria, which struck her native Puerto Rico in September 2017, killing thousands of residents and… Source Source / Read More: Florida’s Housing Crisis Makes It Almost Impossible for Storm Victims to Recover
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico and Jackson, Mississippi Share Climate Injustices — and Solutions
As I scrolled through my news feed, crimes, casualties, and human-interest pieces flickered across the screen, mixed in with memes, music videos, and recipes. Within the anxiety-inducing maelstrom, a clear theme stood out to me: Climate change has us all fucked, doubly so if you are a minority. Driving the point home were the seemingly unrelated stories of environmental devastation concurrently unfolding in Jackson, Mississippi, and Puerto Rico. At first glance, they seemed disparate, but my shared identity as an African American from Houston, Texas, and an Afro-Caribbean from Portmore, Jamaica, stitched the two together into a painfully familiar tale…
Congress Can Help Prevent Health Coverage Disruptions and Lock in Recent Gains
The uninsured rate is at a record low, according to the latest Census data. One major reason: the temporary prohibition on terminating Medicaid coverage for most enrollees during the federally declared public health emergency (PHE). But this “continuous coverage” requirement will phase out when the PHE ends, likely next year. As Congress begins work on end-of-year legislation, policies that protect and bolster health coverage, particularly for low-income people, should be a top priority. Medicaid’s continuous coverage provision has helped keep people, including millions of children, insured despite the economic and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The continuous coverage…
Puerto Rico Needs Support After Hurricane Fiona. Here’s How to Help.
In the wake of Hurricane Fiona, mutual aid and grassroots networks in Puerto Rico are directly assisting struggling communities with food, water, and medical supplies. Through recruiting volunteers, distributing resources, and cleaning up communities, local organizations are quickly addressing needs while the government dithers. “We have seen that the government is incapable of addressing the immediate survival needs of vulnerable communities, those vulnerable to climate change, economically vulnerable,” said Aurora Santiago-Ortiz, an assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Because the government is unable to address these immediate needs for survival, folks have had to…
AOC: Fossil Fuel Reliance Aided “Tragically Predictable” Puerto Rico Blackout
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said that the power outages in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Fiona was “tragically predictable” and could have been mitigated with sustainability measures that she and climate advocates have promoted. High winds knocked out the entire electrical grid for over 1.4 million customers in the U.S. territory on Sunday before the hurricane made landfall, five years after Hurricane Maria similarly caused an island-wide blackout that took nearly a year to fix. However, the system was plagued with constant blackouts. Luma Energy, the private company that took over transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico…
Entirety of Puerto Rico’s Private Power Grid Knocked Out Before Hurricane Hit
The entirety of Puerto Rico lost power on Sunday, leaving the island’s over 3 million people in the dark before the Category 1 Hurricane Fiona that was forecasted to dump at least over a foot and up to 30 inches of rain on the island. Over 1.4 million customers tracked by Luma Energy, which owns the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, lost power. This includes places like health centers, where many people rely on electricity to survive. According to PowerOutage.us, the vast majority of buildings and residences are still without power as of Monday morning, with over…
AOC Says Bipartisan Bill to Grant Puerto Rico Self-Determination Is “Un Milagro”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) unveiled a bill on Thursday that would carve a path for Puerto Rico to determine its own territorial status. The bill was negotiated on by lawmakers with opposing views on how the colonized territory should be designated. Known as the Puerto Rico Status Act, the latest draft of the bill would authorize a new plebiscite with federal oversight to give Puerto Ricans the choice between pre-defined statuses of statehood, independence, or sovereignty in free association with the U.S. It is the first bill proposing a binding plebiscite…
AOC Slams Supreme Court for Limiting Puerto Ricans’ Access to Disability Checks
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) pushed back on a Supreme Court decision that limits Puerto Ricans’ access to government benefits on Thursday, condemning the decision for advancing the U.S.’s colonialist grip over the territory. In an 8 to 1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans do not have the constitutional right to access the same government disability benefits as people living in the U.S. mainland. The ruling rejected an appeal from a Puerto Rican resident who was sued for $25,000 by the government for receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments when he moved to Puerto Rico. Ocasio-Cortez, whose…