[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 46 (Thursday, March 15, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H1613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    YABUCOA AND VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Puerto Rico (Ms. Velazquez) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, as we speak today, the people of Puerto 
Rico continue to suffer. Currently, 200,000 families and businesses, 16 
percent of the island, remain without power. That is not 6 days after 
the hurricane or 6 weeks. We are talking about 6 months.
  For those still without power in Puerto Rico, they are now living 
through the longest blackout in modern history.
  While parts of the island are recovering, it is the rural, far-flung 
portions of the island that continue to suffer the most and where aid 
has been slowest to reach. For example, if you go to my hometown of 
Yabucoa, where Hurricane Maria made landfall, it looks like the 
hurricane struck yesterday. Two-thirds of the residents living there 
are without electricity.
  For decades, Yabucoa's baseball stadium stood as an important symbol 
of that town's community. The people there love baseball, and the 
stadium was a community anchor, a symbol of the town and its people. 
Those who live in Yabucoa are proud of their baseball diamond, as this 
town fielded Puerto Rico's team in the 2017 Junior League World Series.
  Today, the baseball stadium sits empty, now a symbol of how the 
people of Yabucoa struggle daily to survive. Meanwhile, basic services 
are hard to come by, with hospitals relying on generators to provide 
lifesaving treatment. Older, rural parts of Puerto Rico continue to 
suffer immensely.
  Thirty miles east of Yabucoa's coast sits the island of Vieques. As 
an island off an island, Vieques also has been neglected, waiting for 
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restore power.
  Just a few weeks ago, I was there and I saw this on the road: power 
poles dangling from electric wires, just waiting to snap.
  Can you imagine seeing that in the mainland United States?
  Again, this is not 1 week or 2 weeks after the hurricane. It is close 
to 6 months later. Meanwhile, the island's connection to the main power 
grid has been cut off, and some workers think it will take years to 
fully restore the undersea cables.
  Those are just two towns in a commonwealth of 3.3 million American 
citizens, but all across Puerto Rico there are rural areas that have 
been hit hard and are still suffering today.
  We cannot afford to forget what has happened there. These are fellow 
American citizens. For 120 years they have fought, shed blood, and died 
in our wars, defending our freedoms. Now they need our help to recover 
from a humanitarian crisis.
  I implore my colleagues, we must not forget Puerto Rico. We must 
allocate additional aid and help. We must rebuild Puerto Rico stronger 
and better than ever before. Until we do, we will be failing the people 
of Puerto Rico, we will be failing our fellow Americans.

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