A rat infestation in a government office in Florida contaminated supplies that could have been sent to Puerto Rico hurricane victims. 
 
 The water and food was moved into the premises despite officials knowing the office had been infested with rodents since August—a month before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. 
 
 Related: Trump tells Puerto Rico "We love you" as FEMA cuts off food and water aid to island 
 
 According to the Orlando Sentinel, Puerto Rican authorities were unable to ship donated aid because of insufficient financing. 
 
 The Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration executive director Carlos Mercader explained past efforts to send the supplies through other organizations had ultimately proved unsuccessful. 
 
 Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images 
 
 Mercader added that the office in Kissimmee, Florida, had deteriorated to such an extent that his administration had decided to move to a new building. 
 
 “Every day, those employees would go into that office and saw those boxes and they did nothing,” Hernandez Mayoral, who ran the Kissimmee headquarters from 2013 to 2014, said. “As if there was no need on the island. This is government negligence." 
 
 The reports of the spoiled food come amid a litany of administrative failings with regard to aid sent to Puerto Rico. 
 
 U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings and Stacey Plaskett, the congressional delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, have called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be subpoenaed over its failure to provide tens of millions to Puerto Rico. 
 
 The federal agency awarded a $156 million contract to a small Atlanta-based company called Tribute Contracting LLC. It delivered only 50,000 of the 30 million meals promised, CNN reported. 
 
 "One of the primary reasons FEMA failed to deliver these meals is because it inexplicably awarded a contract worth approximately $156 million to deliver 30 million emergency meals to a tiny, one-person company with a history of struggling with much smaller contracts," Cummings and Plaskett said in the letter. 
 
 Contracting owner Tiffany Brown said Tuesday that she has been overwhelmed by the order and plans to sue the government for $70 million. ||||| A rat infestation closed down a government office in Kissimmee that was storing donations destined for Puerto Rico, contaminating boxes of supplies that were never sent to the island. 
 
 The office of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration “does not have the budget to finance the shipping costs” of the supplies, according to PRFAA’s executive director Carlos Mercader. He added that previous efforts to send the boxes of water, food and other supplies through other organizations “have been unsuccessful.” 
 
 Mercader could not say how many boxes were on the property, but the island’s regional office had collected the items in Hurricane Maria’s aftermath, from local organizations and private individuals. 
 
 “Due to the many Puerto Rican families that have been displaced to Florida because of the hurricane, we have donated the meals to Puerto Rican families in need,” Mercader said Tuesday in a statement. “We will soon conduct an inventory of the donations to identify which ones are fit to be given out to Puerto Rican evacuees in Central Florida.” 
 
 The office was previously infested by rodents on August 10, about a month before the storm devastated the island. 
 
 “The building where the office is located is deteriorated, aside from being old, which is why PRFAA has decided to move the office to a more appropriate and dignified space to continue offering the services to the public,” Mercader said. 
 
 The agency, which represents Puerto Rico through its Central Florida and Washington D.C. offices, promotes public policy issues related to the island and was created to support Puerto Ricans moving to the region. The Kissimmee office is currently managed by Mercader since the most recent director, Frances Ortiz, resigned last month. 
 
 Thousands of Puerto Ricans have relocated to Florida after Hurricane Maria hit the island, many of whom are expected to stay in Central Florida. Last month, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló rallied members of the Puerto Rican community in the region and urged them use their political leverage against lawmakers who have voted against the island’s interests. 
 
 Juan Hernandez Mayoral, who directed the PRFAA office in Kissimmee from 2013 to 2017, said the news was “baffling.” 
 
 “Every day, those employees would go into that office and saw those boxes and they did nothing,” said Hernandez Mayoral, who is a former Puerto Rican senator and is affiliated with the island’s pro-commonwealth party. “As if there was no need on the island. This is government negligence.” 
 
 Jennifer Marcial Ocasio contributed to this report. 
 
 bpadro@orlandosentinel.com or 407-232-0202. Follow me on Twitter @BiancaJoanie ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Daniella Silva 
 
 Nearly half of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents still lack potable water one week after Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on the island, officials reiterated Wednesday — as locals literally scrambled to stay alive. 
 
 About 44 percent of the Puerto Rican population remains without drinking water, the Department of Defense said in a statement Wednesday. 
 
 “Given the changing scope and conditions, DoD will adjust its concept of operations in Puerto Rico and transition from a short term, sea-based response to a predominantly land-based effort designed to provide robust, longer term support to [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and [to Puerto Rico]," the statement, from Defense Department spokesman Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, read. 
 
 Meanwhile, many locals said they were struggling to find safe drinking water and increasingly worried about a looming public health crisis in the U.S. territory. 
 
 “This paradise has turned into hell lately in the last couple of days,” said Gregorio Cortés, a doctor from Carolina, Puerto Rico, by phone on Wednesday. 
 
 Related: Lawmakers Want General Commanding Hurricane Relief 
 
 “Pharmacies and supermarkets are starting to close because they don’t have enough diesel supply to keep running so people are having less and less opportunity to find drinking water and food or supplies, he said. 
 
 Cortés said many on the lived in worry about where they would find their next supply of water for themselves and their families. “That’s everyday life for us now,” he said. 
 
 People sometimes travel long distances after hearing a particular store still had drinking water and food left, only to leave empty handed, he added. 
 
 In the northern municipality of Bayamón, mother Betsy Chilea described looking for water for her children. 
 
 "It's very hard because we don't have anything," she told NBC News. 
 
 When asked if she had seen federal aid in the area, she said, "No! Not anything. Don't see anything." 
 
 Related: Mayor Issues ‘S.O.S.’ as Puerto Ricans Scramble to Help Most Vulnerable 
 
 Cortés, who is father to a 7-year-old and 3-year-old, said that even for families who have had their running water restored, there is major risk that it is not clean enough to drink because of contamination. 
 
 “We’re boiling the water and after we boil it we are filtering it and especially since I have small kids we worry about them and their safety,” he said. 
 
 There are more than 8,800 federal staff, including 600 FEMA workers, on the ground in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands aiding recovery efforts after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, FEMA said Wednesday. 
 
 People queue to fill containers with water from a tank truck at an area hit by Hurricane Maria in Canovanas, Puerto Rico, Sept. 26. Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters 
 
 The agency said it has provided more than 6.5 million liters of water, 4.4 million meals and 70,000 tarps, among other supplies, to the islands since Maria first made landfall. 
 
 President Trump has said he will visit the area next Tuesday. 
 
 Related: What Is the Jones Act, the Law Some Say Hurts Puerto Rico? 
 
 "I will be going down to Puerto Rico next week to get an on the ground briefing about the disaster recovery and to see all of our great first responders and to be meet a lot of the people who were so affected by these storms," he said from Indiana on Wednesday. "We are with you now, I tell them, and we will be there every step of the way until this job is done. It is truly catastrophic what happened in Puerto Rico." 
 
 But even with federal and local aid trickling, residents in San Juan and throughout Puerto Rico still lacked basic necessities and some said the public health risk was mounting. 
 
 Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Wednesday evening that the island was working to meet the needs of its people while facing a major disaster. 
 
 People carry water in bottles retrieved from a canal due to lack of water following passage of Hurricane Maria, in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 25. Hector Retamal / AFP - Getty Images 
 
 "You have to understand that this is a devastation of an enormous magnitude, that our grid, our energy grid is completely destroyed," he told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on "Hardball." 
 
 "We are on an island so getting resources over here has been a rate-litigating step so we're working on it we’re delivering food and water, we're making sure diesel gets to the people," he added. 
 
 Isabel Rullán, co-founder and managing director of ConPRmetidos, a non-profit group, said even if people have running water, they may not have the power or means to boil or purify it. The non-profit, which focuses on fostering personal, social, and economic development of Puerto Rican communities, is raising money for long-term relief efforts. 
 
 Photos: Powerless Puerto Rico Struggles to Recover Post Maria 
 
 “This is a big problem," she said by phone Wednesday. Rullán's office in San Juan had only recently gotten its running water back, but the situation was still critical in many areas, she said. 
 
 "We’re in San Juan which is one of the least affected areas and they were still very much affected," she said. 
 
 Rullán, who lives in the northern municipality of Guaynabo, said her own building lacked running water and power. She was given water by neighbors after the hurricane hit because there was none left in the nearest supermarket. 
 
 People line up to fill containers with water from a tank truck after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria on Sept. 26 in Canovanas, Puerto Rico. Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters 
 
 She added that the problem went beyond access to drinking water — it was becoming a real public health concern. 
 
 Compounding that issue was hospitals lacking diesel and being unable to take new patients, she said. 
 
 "There’s so much contamination right now, there’s so many areas that are flooded and have oil, garbage in the water, there’s debris everywhere,” she said by phone. 
 
 “We’re going to have a lot of people that are potentially and unfortunately going to get sick and may die,” she said. 
 
 Photos: Satellite Photos Show Puerto Rico Left in the Dark 
 
 The Department of Defense said Wednesday that 59 of the 69 hospitals were “operational with unknown status.” FEMA also said it had delivered fuel to 19 hospitals for power generators. 
 
 Still, doctors and locals have described rising concern over the availability of diesel to power life-saving equipment. Hurricane Maria has been blamed for at least 18 deaths in the territory. 
 
 “This is what’s going to happen with the water, people are going to start getting sick and then there’s not enough space in the hospitals,” Rullán said. 
 
 CORRECTION (Sept. 17, 2017, 10 p.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated how much water FEMA has provided to residents of Puerto Rico. The agency has provided more than 6.5 million liters of water, not 6.5 liters.
– Puerto Rico is still in great need of hurricane relief supplies, as San Juan's mayor noted last week, which makes recent news out of Florida frustrating. The Orlando Sentinel reports that boxes of donated supplies meant to be sent to the island after Hurricane Maria remained stuck instead in a Kissimmee government office, and that a recent rat infestation has now contaminated some of the food, water, and other supplies that were left languishing. The office of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, which its executive director says is situated in an "old" and "deteriorated" building, couldn't move the materials to their intended destination due to budgetary issues related to shipping. Carlos Mercader says attempts to recruit other groups to help them send the supplies were "unsuccessful." A previous chief of the PRFFA is outraged by the wasted donations. "Every day, those employees would go into that office and saw those boxes and they did nothing," says Juan Hernandez Mayoral, who is also a former Puerto Rican senator. "This is government negligence." Newsweek notes this news comes on the heels of a contract canceled by FEMA after a one-woman company failed to deliver millions of meals to Puerto Rico as promised; Democratic lawmakers now want the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to subpoena FEMA to find out how that small company got the $156 million contract to perform that service. Meanwhile, Mercader says his team is trying to assess which supplies are still good and will then get them out to Puerto Rican evacuees living in central Florida.