Letter from the Editor - Fall 2019, Print Edition No. 1

Illustration by Jackie Sedley

The early days of September signify a multitude of events that impact the local community at Santa Monica College (SMC), our country, and the world at large. On campus, the first days of September mark a new beginning for over 30,000 students that call SMC home. Classes are in full swing, fall athletics are off to a booming start and the optimism of a fresh semester circulates through SMC’s six campuses.

SMC’s Fall 2019 semester also represents a new chapter for us here at The Corsair. Our diverse, immensely talented team of student journalists have already begun working tirelessly to cover issues and topics relevant to the students, faculty and staff of SMC. As you read this semester’s first print edition of The Corsair on Wednesday, September 11, 2019, our country remembers the 2,996 people lost to Sep. 11, 2001’s tragic terrorist attacks.

18 years ago today, four domestic commercial airplanes were hijacked. At 8:46 a.m. eastern time, Los Angeles-bound American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s north tower in New York City.

17 minutes later, at 9:03 a.m. eastern time, another Los Angeles-bound commercial airplane, United Airlines Flight 175, struck the World Trade Center’s south tower. American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon Building in Washington at 9:37 a.m. eastern time and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. eastern time.

After the events of that horrific day, our ability to come together and help those in need proved second to none. Unfortunately, in the midst of today’s political divisiveness and natural disasters, it can be easy to forget this. Not only is it imperative that we stick together as a unified people, but we must care for the needs of all Americans, regardless of state or territory.

One key instance in which we fell short was Sep. 2017’s Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 hurricane that decimated the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, in addition to the island of Dominica.

Recorded as the deadliest hurricane to hit the islands since 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, Maria knocked out more than 80 percent of Puerto Rico’s power lines. This left 3.4 million American citizens without power.

Typically, when a hurricane is set to hit a state like Florida or Texas, U.S. power companies convene beforehand to fix the state’s infrastructure. In the aftermath of Maria, however, the Puerto Rican Electrical Power Authority (PREPA) wasn’t able to do something similar, citing financial constraints. Instead, PREPA hired a small, unknown private contractor as part of a deal that later incited a federal investigation.

This situation became the largest blackout in U.S. history and the second largest in the world. Washington’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had its own issues with private contractors and Puerto Rico endured 328 days without fully restored power.

When President Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico in October 2017, his comments raised eyebrows nationwide.

“If you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the hundreds and hundreds of people that died - what is your death count? Sixteen. You can be very proud of all of your people,” Trump said.

Maria’s death toll reached 2,978, just 18 fewer people than the events of Sep. 11, 2001. As thousands continued to die in the storm’s aftermath, the U.S. government failed to provide ample assistance outside of FEMA’s efforts.

Now two years after Maria, dialogue about the storm and its long-term effects on U.S. territories have ceased. This conversation must start back up. Those impacted by Maria shouldn’t have to rebuild alone. We needed a better response from our elected officials and can still do more to help fellow Americans in need, firstly by not forgetting this natural disaster.

What’s continually discouraging is that as a new hurricane season looms this Fall, our country remains divided. Shoot, we can’t even agree on the direction of Hurricane Dorian - the latest hurricane to hit the U.S. - and are devoting more attention to President Trump’s Twitter than to helping Bahamian people in despair.

On the morning of Sep. 1, Trump tweeted that the state of Alabama, along with Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, would “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated” by the storm.

The National Weather Service’s (NWS) Birmingham, Alabama station quickly responded 20 minutes later, stating, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NWS’s parent organization, also chimed in. NOAA disputed NWS’s prior tweet and sided with President Trump.

An unsigned statement read, “The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

The head of NWS added to the confusion by stating they “did what any office would do to protect the public.”

Then, Monday, acting chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Craig McLean announced, “I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity. My understanding is that this intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance, or simply put, political."

Coinciding with this political and geographic turmoil is our country’s response to Dorian itself, which has left 70,000 people from Grand Bahama - the northernmost island of the Bahamas - and Abaco Island, which lies 180 miles off the coast of South Florida, homeless.

When speaking to reporters Monday on the White House South Lawn about whether or not the U.S. would let Bahamians into the country on humanitarian grounds, Trump said, "We have to be very careful.”

Trump continued to state that because the Bahamas “had some tremendous problems” with people going to the country that “weren’t supposed to be there,” the U.S. should be hesitant to let Bahamians flee from their hurricane-battered homes.

At the end of the day, we as Americans cannot let any one figure or establishment prevent us from assisting fellow humans in times of need. Let us reflect on how we’ve responded to tragic events in the past and place that energy toward rebuilding the areas that need it most.

Remembrance and honoring of Sep. 11, 2001 and Hurricanes Maria and Dorian are not only ingrained in our nation’s unified culture, but heavily influence the local community here at SMC. More than 3,000 international students who come from over 110 countries, along with thousands of other American-born students, make SMC one of the country’s best two-year colleges.

Maintaining that sense of unity is paramount at both the local and national levels, especially in today’s world.