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Sablan: Soudelor brought divisions down
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) spoke at the Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday, urging the community to continue succeeding together after the devastating Typhoon Soudelor.
“We still have people who cannot return to their homes. Power is still out for much of Saipan. People have been out of work and lost incomes. Some businesses are closed, many are operating reduced hours.
“Even those of you who managed to get back in business after the typhoon lost revenue, lost inventory, have repairs to make, and many are paying for generator fuel and maintenance.”
“…But if anything, Soudelor broke down some of the divisions in our society,” Sablan said, noting the help people got from the Nutrition Assistance Program, whether they were a U.S. citizen, a green card holder, or a contract worker.
He also noted FEMA’s assistance to individuals, at $10 million to date.
“I have seen walls come down—and not just from the storm. I have seen a community that understands that we are all in this together. And together we can succeed.”
Looking forward, Sablan said they have integration into the national food stamp system to work on, noting that if the CNMI had been in this program already, all the questions about who qualified for disaster relief and if there was enough money to go around would “never have been asked.”
“And we would have gotten the money into the economy a little faster,” Sablan told the business crowd.
Sablan, who has been on island since Typhoon Soudelor hit, expects to be on island until near the end of the month to continue help in relief efforts. This may mean he might miss the first few weeks of the start of sessions in the U.S. Congress, which was in recess in August.
