‘We Need to Get Our Sh*t Together Because People Are Dying’
President Donald Trump may have thanked her for her kind words about FEMA, but he didn’t hear all of them. San Juan, Puerto Rico mayor Carmen YulÃn Cruz says FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) employees are good people who really want to help but they are waiting for their “marching orders,” and assessing the life-or-death situation in the capital city of 400,000 devastated by Hurricane Maria.
Mayor YulÃn Cruz is blasting the Trump administration’s red tape, telling CBS News they want her to write memos. The San Juan mayor has literally been knocking on doors herself and saving lives.
“We are having a humanitarian crisis here, and we’re doing all we can. The worse fear is that we cannot get to people in time,” she says. “Two people died yesterday, because there was no diesel” at the local hospital. “There’s no diesel, there’s no life support system.”
“Help needs to get into people’s hands. Now.”
“The FEMA employees want to do it. They do,” she says. “But the chain of command is just sucking everything up.”
She warns that FEMA is spending time assessing and not doing anything.
“If you don’t ‘do,’ hundreds of lives will be lost.”
The mayor also took a swing at President Trump for his tweets Monday night about Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.
“This is a time for action. Let’s not talk about the debt. The fricking debt.”
“We need to get our shit together because people are dying,” she told CBS News. “It’s life or death.”
“Every moment we spend just not getting the help we’re supposed to get, people are starting to die,” YulÃn Cruz said.Â
She notes that Health and Human Services employees are on the ground and “ready to help but they didn’t get any marching orders.” She’s asking for someone to “structure the logistics.”
“There are people who have had no food and no water for 14 days.”Â
CBS’ David Begnaud†posted a longer clip, in which Mayor YulÃn Cruz says, “I don’t give a crap about who is running the show. Who ever is running the show needs to get the help out of the logistics meeting, and into people’s hands.”
And she says FEMA is still assessing, six days after the hurricane.
“The other day I was told, ‘You need to write a memo.'”
Begnaud on camera referred to this tweet from FEMA Administrator Brock Long:
Amnd Begnaud’s response:
CNN’s David Wright posted some of her remarks from a different inrterview:
President Trump has announced he is visiting Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
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