At Harvard, San Juan mayor reflects on harsh aftermath of Hurricane Maria
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz says her career is haunted as much by those she feels she failed as it is soothed by those she helped to save. “We did all we could, but we could have done more,” she said, in a powerful, at times tearful speech recalling the aftermath of devastating Hurricane Maria last year. “Forever, I would know that because I stopped to eat, somebody died. Because I wasn’t able to get there faster, somebody died.” Honored by the student-led Phillips Brooks House Association, Cruz was the 12th honoree of the Robert Coles “Call of Service” award. Coles ’46, a civil rights activist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and retired Harvard professor, sat in the front row of Memorial Church Friday night to hear Cruz talk about how her “brothers and sisters” were attacked, “not by the storm but by an administration not up to the task.” “They killed us with neglect,” she said, citing the 2,975 people who lost their lives following the...