Donald Trump slams Puerto Rico as Hurricane Dorian skirts island

San Juan - President Donald Trump Slams Hurricane Dorian Evacuees on Wednesday, calling it"one of the most corrupt places on earth" before an upcoming hurricane skirted the US land, waking memories of previous devastating storms. Puerto Rico is still struggling to recuperate from back-to-back hurricanes in 2017 that killed about 3 000 individuals shortly after the island filed for bankruptcy. On Wednesday it escaped fresh tragedy as Hurricane Dorian avoided the land and headed northwest toward Florida. Dorian is expected to develop into a major storm which may do severe damage by the time it reaches the US coast late Sunday or early Monday, NHC forecasts reveal. But as it passed Puerto Rico, the storm was blowing winds much less strong than when Hurricane Maria struck in September 2017. Trump, who approved an emergency announcement to the island on Tuesday evening, fired off a verbal broadside from Puerto Rico's leaders on Twitter early on Wednesday. "Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places in the world. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt. Congress approved Billions of Dollars last time, more than everywhere else has ever gotten, and it is sent to Crooked Pols. No good!" Trump wrote. Trump has a history of disputes with Puerto Rico's leaders, even after coming under heavy criticism for a tepid response to the 2017 disasters on the island of over 3 million people. Earlier in the afternoon, Dorian ploughed through the US Virgin Islands and Culebra, an island belonging to Puerto Rico, information from the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) revealed. By Wednesday evening, it was obvious Dorian wouldn't hit Puerto Rico, though Ernesto Morales of this territory's National Meteorological Service told a news conference it might cause heavy rain and possible flooding on the primary island. The NHC said Dorian was blowing maximum sustained winds of 130 km/h some 60 kilometers north-northwest of San Juan, making it a Category 1 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.

Lousy HISTORY

Two years back, Puerto Rico was recovering from Hurricane Irma when Maria struck, destroying bridges and roads and leaving much of the Caribbean island with no power for months. The US answer to Maria became highly politicised as the Trump government was criticised as being slow to recognise the extent of the devastation and in providing disaster relief. Hogan Gidley, a White House deputy press secretary, accused Puerto Rican authorities on Wednesday of misusing taxpayer funds in the 2017 hurricanes. "The money we sent down there, we now know, some around the floor have been indicted for misusing that cash, giving it to politicians as bonuses, observing that food rot from the ports, the water went bad," he told reporters. Puerto Rican public colleges will be shut on Thursday and public workers are instructed to remain home. Earlier this week, Democrats in the US Congress criticised Trump for shifting $271 million allowed for emergency help and cyber security to pay for detention facilities and courts for migrants coming at the US-Mexico border. Since Dorian moved shore, trainings were mounting at the Bahamas, which might be hard hit. A US Air Force base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, home to the biggest spaceport in the United States, entered the first stages of storm training on Wednesday.