Photos depicting a massive cache of water bottles left unused on a runway in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, have surfaced a day after President Trump claimed that his administration’s response to deadly Hurricane Maria last fall in Puerto Rico was “incredibly successful.”
“Although you don’t believe it… almost a million boxes of water that were never delivered to the villages,” Abdiel Santana, a photographer who works with the United Forces of Rapid Action agency of the Puerto Rican Police, wrote in a Facebook post. “Is there anyone who can explain this?”
Santana told CBS News that he took the photos because he noticed the bottles last year and was upset they were still there.
[Also read: San Juan mayor: ‘God help us all’ if Trump thinks response to Hurricane Maria was a success]
There is some debate about who is to blame.
Carlos Mercader, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, faults FEMA for not giving the water to hurricane victims.
The water was delivered to the island by FEMA, says director of disaster operations Marty Bahomonde, but he stressed that the agency did not track the shipments thereafter. FEMA is examining if it was responsible for leaving the bottles on the runway.
According to CBS News, a FEMA official said that if the agency “put that water on that runway there will be hell to pay…If we did that, we’re going to fess up to it.”
The photos and report come after Trump praised his administration for how they handled the catastrophe.
“The job that FEMA and law enforcement and everybody did working along with the governor in Puerto Rico I think was tremendous,” Trump said on Tuesday. “I think that Puerto Rico was an incredible, unsung success.”
Puerto Rico’s government updated the death toll from Hurricane Maria late last month, and now believe that 2,975 people died because of the hurricane and its aftermath.
