In light of the outcry from one particularly vocal Democratic mayor in Puerto Rico about relief efforts after Hurricane Maria, a video is quickly making its way across the internet purportedly showing what happened to many of the supplies sent to help the locals who were devastated by the storm.
The video’s description reads, “Fully packed meals in Trash Dumpster in Patilla, P.R. and Starvation still in effect in most of the island”:
The video shows a man shocked to find what looks like a shipping container-sized bin filled with box after box of unopened meals that have been discarded. When the camera pans, you can see a semi-truck trailer right behind the dumpster, which raises the question, “Did those supplies go straight from the truck to the trash?”
It turns out the man in the dumpster happens to be the Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, Luis Rivera Marin, who then spoke to CBS News Correspondent David Begnaud about what he found:
Marin states: “We got tipped about the mishandling of some of the supplies in a distribution center in Patilla, and we were able to corroborate what we didn’t want to see. In a garbage dump truck we found pallets full of meals ready to be distributed at one time but now all spoiled. They were left under the rain in the open air under the sun subject to rodents and animals.”
Just two weeks ago, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz gave an impassioned speech calling out President Trump for what she sees as sub-par relief efforts while standing in front of pallets of unopened supplies donated by companies.
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As NBC reported at the time,
The mayor of Puerto Rico’s largest city was rebuked by President Donald Trump on Saturday after pleading for more federal assistance in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
“We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy,” San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said Friday at a news conference. She highlighted donations from companies and others, including 200,000 pounds of food donated by Goya, as a contrast to federal help.
“This is what we got last night: four pallets of water, three pallets of meals and 12 pallets of infant food — which I gave them to the people of Comerio, where people are drinking off a creek,” she said. “So I am done being polite. I am done being politically correct. I am mad as hell.”
President Trump responded to Cruz via Twitter:
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Exit thought from Conservative News: