Twitter Is Remembering Hurricane Maria's Devastation On Its One Year Anniversary
On Sept. 20, 2017, Puerto Rico experienced a terrible disaster when a Category 4 hurricane made landfall on the island and devastated its communities. Well, fast forward to today, and the disaster still isn't over, at least according to these tweets about Hurricane Maria on its one year anniversary. Safe to say, no one will forget about this tragedy anytime soon.
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, marks the one year anniversary of Hurricane Maria making landfall in Puerto Rico. The hurricane destroyed homes, left residents without electricity for months, and killed nearly 3,000 people. One year on, many people are taking to social media to pay tribute to those impacted by Hurricane Maria and point out the ways the community is still struggling to recover. Politicians, concerned citizens, and those directly touched by the hurricane took to Twitter to share their memories one year on. The messages ranged from expressions of sympathy to anger about the ways they said the government had failed to help the island recover.
The tributes dedicated to Puerto Rico and its residents are touching, but its the residents themselves whose words truly mean the most. In honor of the one year anniversary of a horrific experience, residents offered encouraging words, inspiring messages, and most of all still showed love for their home Puerto Rico.
This tragedy may have happened a year ago, but communities and residents are still picking their lives back up and recovering from the natural disaster's impact. These tweets prove that even if certain political figures won't step up and speak out, the public always will.
These tweets are proof that citizens will never forget Hurricane Maria, and are still unsatisfied with the work being done to help the territory. Following Hurricane Maria, many people openly criticized President Donald Trump and his administration for providing minimal relief efforts to the people of Puerto Rico. Following the disaster, many people were without food and clean water, and it took nearly 11 months for power to be restored to the entire island. Despite the criticism, Trump apparently has other opinions concerning how his team handled the ordeal. On Tuesday, Sept. 11, during an Oval Office briefing, Trump discussed his administration's response to the hurricane and referred to it as an "unsung success" for him and his team.
In response to Trump's claim that his administration's response to Hurricane Maria was a "success," San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper that same day to dispute Trump's remark. She said,
In a humanitarian crisis, you should not be grading yourself. You should not be just having a parade of self-accolades. You should never be content with everything we did. I'm not content with everything I did, I should have done more. We should all have done more. But the President continues to refuse to acknowledge his responsibility, and the problem is that if he didn't acknowledge it in Puerto Rico, God bless the people of South Carolina and the people of North Carolina.
Trump's "success" comment isn't the only remark that's gotten the president in trouble. On Sept. 13, Trump took to Twitter to deny Hurricane Maria's death toll, despite the facts to back it up. In his tweet, he claims that "3,000 people did not die" following the hurricane, and that the statistic was done "by Democrats" in an effort to "make him look bad." The number comes from a George Washington University study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government, and Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello has defended the number as accurate.
For those who want to show their support for these devastated communities, here's how you can help Puerto Rico even after a year later.
