A Puerto Rican town wrote 'S.O.S.' in the street after Hurricane Maria. Now it has a new message.

Like almost all of Puerto Rico, the beachfront community of Punta Santiago was devastated by Hurricane Maria last September. The town, on the island's southeastern coast, is near where Maria made landfall on September 20, 2017.

With no electricity and dwindling supplies, anxious residents scribbled a plea to the world on the pavement at an intersection in town. "S.O.S," it read. "Necesitamos Agua/Comida." We need water and food.

An aid official snapped a photo of the message four days later while doing an aerial assessment of Maria's devastation. It was widely shared on social media and caught the attention of Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.

With the help of the National Guard, Rosselló helped deliver a shipment of supplies to Punta Santiago a week after Maria hit.

But the Category 4 hurricane left most of the island without power for months and caused billions of dollars in damages. And Punta Santiago, whose economy relies largely on tourism, faced a long rebuilding process.

Fast forward to Monday -- 11 months to the day after Maria struck. The same spot on the same street in Punta Santiago now displays a different message, one that may inspire travel: "Bienvenidos," or welcome. Residents gathered to write it on the asphalt, along with other words of hope and a message for the media: #CoverTheProgress.

Washington, DC is in the same position as PR, people have no voting representation in Congress on how taxes are spent for military and other federal costs. DC has more population than Vermont and Wyoming. It also pays 4 times more into the IRS than it gets in Federal payments, unlike PR. Many in DC have also died in military service, or sustained permanent damage. Read in a local paper that all electrical service has now been reconnected. Glad to hear more decentralization. Hope sunny PR is making good use of solar energy.

When my late husband was dying at home of Alzheimer’s, I laid in about a 3 month supply of non-refrigerated food. I knew I might have a hard time getting out near the end. As it turned out there was only about 6 weeks that he could not walk to the store with me. I urge everyone to lay in a supply of a month’s worth of non-perishable food, and at least a week of water. Also a bottle of liquid Iodine. Put one drop in a glass of water let sit for 1/2 hour and it is good to go. If water is dirty, filter it through a clean cloth before adding the Iodine. Got me through Central America with no “trots”. I phoned my son in PR just before Maria and made sure he had made all necessary preparations. They were in a good concrete building fortunately.

We don’t have any responsibility for their profligate debt.

Not exactly true, Clinton killed their economic boom.

PR had a stable economy that was growing until Clinton repealed Section 936

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/heres-how-an-obscure-tax-change-sank-puerto-ricos-economy.html

"More than half a century ago, U.S. lawmakers sought to help Puerto Rico emerge from a colonial past, transforming its largely agrarian economy into a manufacturing powerhouse. The effort, known as Operation Bootstrap, began with a series of tax breaks designed to attract manufacturers who would provide steady factory jobs.

For a time the plan seemed to work, as standards of living in Puerto Rico rose. Between 1950 and 1980, per capita gross national product grew nearly tenfold in Puerto Rico, and disposable income and educational attainment rose sharply, according to the Center for a New Economy, a think tank based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

One of those tax breaks, enacted in 1976, allowed U.S. manufacturing companies to avoid corporate income taxes on profits made in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico. Manufacturers, led by the pharmaceutical industry, flocked to the island.

But by the early 1990s, the provision faced growing opposition from critics who attacked the tax break as a form of corporate welfare. Much like the current debate over corporations parking profits offshore to avoid taxes, tax reformers saw the provision, known as Section 936, as too costly for the Treasury.

The tax break also had some unintended consequences, notably the unfair tax burden that fell to domestic Puerto Rican companies.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the law that would phase out Section 936 over 10 years.

Plant closures and job losses followed. Ten years later, on the eve of the Great Recession, employment in Puerto Rico peaked. Left with a dwindling tax base, the Puerto Rican government borrowed heavily to replace the lost revenue".

Like everything else they touch, the Klintoons destroyed PR's economy.

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