Rat infestation spoils food, donated supplies never sent to Puerto Rico – “This is government negligence”

Desdemona Despair

By Bianca Padró Ocasio
6 February 2018

(Orlando Sentinel) – A rat infestation closed down a government office in Kissimmee that was storing donations destined for Puerto Rico, contaminating boxes of supplies that were never sent to the island.

The office of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration “does not have the budget to finance the shipping costs” of the supplies, according to PRFAA’s executive director Carlos Mercader. He added that previous efforts to send the boxes of water, food and other supplies through other organizations “have been unsuccessful.”

Mercader could not say how many boxes were on the property, but the island’s regional office had collected the items in Hurricane Maria’s aftermath, from local organizations and private individuals.

“Due to the many Puerto Rican families that have been displaced to Florida because of the hurricane, we have donated the meals to Puerto Rican families in need,” Mercader said Tuesday in a statement. “We will soon conduct an inventory of the donations to identify which ones are fit to be given out to Puerto Rican evacuees in Central Florida.”

The office was previously infested by rodents on 10 August 2017, about a month before the storm devastated the island. […]

Juan Hernandez Mayoral, who directed the PRFAA office in Kissimmee from 2013 to 2017, said the news was “baffling.”

“Every day, those employees would go into that office and saw those boxes and they did nothing,” said Hernandez Mayoral, who is a former Puerto Rican senator and is affiliated with the island’s pro-commonwealth party. “As if there was no need on the island. This is government negligence.” [more]

Rat infestation spoils food, donated supplies never sent to Puerto Rico