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“Hysteria
is starting to spread”: Puerto Rico is devastated in the wake of
Hurricane Maria
No
power, little access to water, dwindling food: the situation in
Puerto Rico right now.
Vox,
25
September, 2016
Five
days after Hurricane
Maria tore through Puerto Rico,
bisecting the entire island, the US territory is in the grips of a
serious, life-threatening crisis, with humanitarian aid getting in
far more slowly than is needed.
The
island is running short on food, fuel, and access to clean water and
there’s limited communications, which means some communities have
received no information about the rescue efforts underway.
Among
the greatest threats is the continuing lack of power throughout much
of the island, after nearly the entire power grid was knocked offline
during the storm (about 80 percent of the transmission
infrastructure was
destroyed).
The New York Times reports it
could be four to six months before power is restored on the island.
That’s half a year with Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents
relying on generators, half a year without air conditioning in the
tropical climate, half a year where electric pumps can’t bring
running water into homes, half a year where even the most basic tasks
of modern life are made difficult.
“The
devastation is vast,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said in
a statement Monday.
“Make no mistake — this is a humanitarian disaster involving 3.4
million U.S. Citizens.”
The
storm has claimed at least 10 lives in Puerto Rico so far, according
to the Associated
Press.
But John
Mutter,
a Columbia University professor who specializes in natural disasters
and studied the death toll from Hurricane Katrina, expects in the
coming days it will reach into the hundreds.
“Being
without power is huge,” says Mutter. “Just how quickly they can
get it back is still an unknown thing. But it’s extremely important
they get it going to suppress the chances of illness following the
storm.”
“Hysteria is starting to spread”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9320575/GettyImages_853161328.jpg)
Family
members collect belongings after hurricane force winds destroyed
their house in Toa Baja, west of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on September
24, 2017. RICARDO
ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
Other
islands -- including Dominica and
the US Virgin islands — were devastated by Maria too. And the whole
Eastern Caribbean region is also still reeling from the effects of
Hurricane Irma.
Puerto
Rico is the most populated island Maria hit. And the crisis there is
particularly intense. For one, it’s exacerbated by lack of
communications. (1,360 out of 1,600 cellphone towers on the
island are
out.)
Many communities have been isolated from the outside world for days,
relying only on radios for news. The communications shortage means
the full extent of the crisis has not been assessed.
"The
devastation in Puerto Rico has set us back nearly 20 to 30 years,"
Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez told CBS
News. "I can't deny that the Puerto Rico of now is different
from that of a week ago. The destruction of properties, of flattened
structures, of families without homes, of debris everywhere. The
island's greenery is gone."
But
over the weekend, a handful of journalists were able to make it in to
communities that have been isolated.
The
Washington Post reported from
Juncos, Puerto Rico, a municipality in the Central Eastern region of
the island. There, they found a diabetic woman afraid that the
refrigeration that keeps her insulin preserved
will soon run out,
people living in homes missing roofs or whole second floors, and
where the villagers asked journalists upon their arrival, “Are you
FEMA?”
There
are few hospitals with running generators, CNN reports,
and fewer with running water. Reuters reports that
hospitals are scrambling to find diesel fuels to power generators,
and that food supplies are running low. A cardiovascular surgeon the
newswire spoke with explained:
…without air conditioning, the walls of the operating room were dripping with condensation and floors were slippery. ... Most patients had been discharged or evacuated to other facilities, but some patients remained because their families could not be reached by phone.
USA
Today made it
to the town Arecibo on the Northern shore of the island, where
residents hadn’t heard any news from the outside world for four
days, and the only source of fresh water is from a single fire
hydrant.
2 hospitals now have power. The latest is Centro Médico, Puerto Rico's main hospital. It was connected late last night.
“Hysteria
is starting to spread,” Jose Sanchez Gonzalez, mayor of Manati, a
town on the North shore, told the
Associated Press. “The hospital is about to collapse. It’s at
capacity. … We need someone to help us immediately.”
But
the list of woes is much longer. An untold number of homes are
irreparably damaged. Infrastructure is badly damaged. People aren’t
working. The storm was particularly costly for the agriculture
industry: “In a matter of hours, Hurricane Maria wiped out about 80
percent of the crop value in Puerto Rico,” the New York
Times reports.
Even
the National Weather Services Doppler weather radar station on the
island has
been destroyed.
That’s the radar that helps meteorologist see where thunderstorms
and other weather systems are moving in real time. “Not having
radar does make future storms more hazardous,” says Jeff Weber, a
meteorologist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Meanwhile,
new crises keep forming in the wake of the storm. On Friday, the
National Weather Service issued a dire warning about the Guajataca
Dam in the Northwestern corner of Puerto Rico, threatening downstream
areas with deadly floods. Seventy thousand people — enough to fill
a small city — have been asked to evacuate areas that
could be flooded by the nearly 11
billion gallons of
water the dam holds back.
And
leaving is not an option, at least for now. “Travelers at the
airport on Sunday were told that passengers who do not already have
tickets may not be able to secure flights out until October 4,”
Reuters reports.
Relief operations have begun, slowly
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9320529/GettyImages_853250268.jpg)
Puerto
Rico's Governor Ricardo Rossello speaks to the media during a press
conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on September 24, 2017. RICARDO
ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images)
Puerto
Rico is an island, which complicates recovery efforts. Supplies have
to be flown in or arrive via ship. Most of the sick and elderly
haven’t been able to evacuate.
On
Saturday, the island’s main port in San Juan reopened and 11 ships
arrived, the AP reports, bringing 1.6 million gallons of water,
23,000 cots, food, and electrical generators. More than
2,500 National
Guard members have been deployed to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin
Islands. The Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers are working to
reopen more ports on the islands. (FEMA is keeping a running
list of
federal resources deployed to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.)
Still,
the relief efforts will take time to make their way to communities
across the island. “We need more resources from the Department of
Defense so we can get helicopters and resources,” Puerto Rico Gov.
Rossello told Politico
Sunday. He also implored Congress to pass a special aid and relief
package for the US territory.
“Whatever
relief package we have, whatever impact we have, we are U.S.
citizens," Rossello said. Puerto Rico’s finances are already
strapped. The territory filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. The
island’s finances are now controlled by a federal board, which made
just $1 billion available for relief, the AP reports.
“Given
Puerto Rico’s fragile economic recovery prior to the storms, we ask
the Trump Administration and the U.S. Congress to take swift action
to help Puerto Rico rebuild,” Rossello said in his Monday
statement.
Meanwhile,
President Donald Trump has not mentioned Puerto Rico in his Twitter
feed since
the day after the storm hit. Trump
approved a disaster declaration for the island that day too, freeing
up federal resources for the recovery. This past weekend, as the
situation on the ground in Puerto Rico came into better focus, Trump
took to Twitter to call out professional athletes for kneeling down
during the National Anthem.
Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble..
President
Trump said Monday night that Puerto Rico is in “deep trouble”
because Hurricane Maria inflicted massive damage on an island already
struggling with debt and weak infrastructure.
In
a series of tweets, Mr. Trump said “much of the island was
destroyed” by Maria, but added that Puerto Rico’s billions in
debt to Wall Street and banks “sadly, must be dealt with.”
“Texas
& Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already
suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep
trouble,” the president said. “It’s old electrical grid, which
was in terrible shape, was devastated.”
The
president said food, water and medical supplies “are top priorities
- and doing well.” Some have criticized the administration for
moving too slowly with relief aid for the island.
Before
Maria hit, Puerto Rico was already dealing with the worst debt crisis
in U.S. municipal history, having defaulted on more than $70 billion
owed to creditors
...It's old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars....
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