Over a month after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm and left most of the island without electricity, running water, or food, FEMA plans to fly nearly 3,000 people from the island's shelters to New York and Florida, BuzzFeed News reports.
"Based on states selected by the governor, FEMA is working to establish host-state agreements with both Florida and New York to accept those identified survivors," a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency told BuzzFeed News.
Fifty-five people died during the hurricane or later as a direct result of the storm, according to the territory's government. Much of the territory, including the outer islands of Vieques and Culebra, remains without electricity, and thousands of miles of roads are still closed. Few hospitals are functioning and thousands are displaced.
The U.S. government has been criticized for a slow response.
"We can't fail to note the dissimilar urgency and priority given to the emergency response in Puerto Rico, compared to the US states affected by hurricanes in recent months," Leilani Farha, the UN special rapporteur on housing, told CNN.
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