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White
House lets Jones Act waiver expire for Puerto Rico
9 October, 2017
The
White House has let a 10-day shipping waiver expire for Puerto Rico,
meaning foreign ships can no longer bring aid to the
hurricane-ravaged island from U.S. ports.
A
spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed on
Monday that the Jones Act waiver, which expired on Sunday, will not
be extended.
U.S.
lawmakers and Puerto Rican officials had been pushing the
administration for an exemption from the Jones Act, a century-old law
that only allows American-built and -operated vessels to make cargo
shipments between U.S. ports.
They
argued that the waiver would help deliver gasoline and other critical
supplies more quickly and cheaply to the island in the wake of
Hurricane Maria. The island could be rebuilding and without power for
months.
The
Trump administration issued a weeklong waiver for Texas and Florida
after hurricanes Harvey and Irma, extending it for an additional week
in September to bolster relief efforts.
But
the White House did not initially lift the shipping restrictions for
Puerto Rico, sparking widespread public outcry and fueling
accusations that Trump is treating the U.S. territory differently
than the states hit by hurricanes.
The
administration agreed to temporarily lift the shipping restrictions
for Puerto Rico on Sept. 28.
But
officials have warned that the biggest challenge for relief efforts
is getting supplies distributed around Puerto Rico once they arrive,
while the U.S. shipping industry maintains that there are adequate
domestic companies available to assist with Puerto Rico’s recovery
efforts.
Lawmakers
in Congress are still pushing to roll back the Jones Act, with Sens.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently introducing
legislation that would permanently exempt Puerto Rico from the
shipping law.
At
McCain’s request, the bill was put on the Senate calendar under a
fast-track procedure that allows it to bypass the normal committee
process, but it has not been scheduled for any floor time.
“Now
that the temporary Jones Act waiver for Puerto Rico has expired, it
is more important than ever for Congress to pass my bill to
permanently exempt Puerto Rico from this archaic and burdensome law,"
McCain said in a statement.
"Until
we provide Puerto Rico with long-term relief, the Jones Act will
continue to hinder much-needed efforts to help the people of Puerto
Rico recover and rebuild from Hurricane Maria.”
FEMA
head Brock Long dismisses San Juan mayor's complaints: 'Political
noise'
8
October, 2017
FEMA
Administrator Brock Long said on Sunday that as his agency responds
to the crisis in Puerto Rico, it's also "filtered out" San
Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, adding: "We don't have time for
the political noise."
More
than two weeks after Hurricane Maria lashed the island, killing 36
people, Cruz tweeted Sunday: "Increasingly painful to undestand
the american people want to help and US Gov does not want to help. WE
NEED WATER!" She later wrote, "Power collapses in San Juan
hospital with 2 patients being transferred out. Have requested
support from @FEMA_Brock NOTHING!"
"We
filtered out the mayor a long time ago," Long told ABC News'
Martha Raddatz on "This Week" Sunday, after Raddatz
mentioned the tweets. "We don't have time for the political
noise. The bottom line is, is that we are making progress everyday in
conjunction with the governor."
Increasingly painful to undestand the american people want to help and US Gov does not want to help. WE NEED WATER!@cnnbrk
Power collapses in San Juan hospital with 2 patients being transferred out. Have requested support from @FEMA_BrockNOTHING! @cnnbrk
Cruz
and President Trump have traded shots in the weeks after the monster
storm made landfall. Late last month, the mayor appeared on
television in a black shirt with white letters that read, "HELP
US, WE ARE DYING." Cruz argued that federal aid had been slow to
reach Puerto Rico following Maria, which knocked out power to the
entire island.
Trump
tweeted the following day: "Such poor leadership ability by the
Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get
their workers to help." He added that Cruz was "very
complimentary only a few days ago," but "has now been told
by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump."
Later,
Cruz wore a short emblazoned with the word "NASTY" for an
interview with Univision.
Trump
visited the island last Tuesday. Afterwards, while Cruz said she
hoped new channels of communication with the White House would "put
in motion what is needed" to save lives, she also said Trump
sometimes was more a "miscommunicator in chief" than a
commander in chief.
"In
regards to the power failure, we are restringing a very fragile
system everyday," Long explained. "As we make progress,
simple thunderstorms pass through, knock the progress out."
Rebuilding
the island, he said, "is going to be a greater conversation for
the Congress in conjunction with the governor."
When
hospitals have power failures, intensive care unit patients are being
flown to the USNS Comfort, according to Long.
"As
far as the political noise, we filter that out, keeps our heads down
and continue to make progress and push forward restoring essential
functions for Puerto Rico," Long said in the interview.
Most
of the 100,000 citizens here have no drinkable water or power, but
the territory has been overlooked in the storm’s aftermath
8 October,
2017
If
Irma hit like a right hook, then Maria was the sucker punch,
battering the islanders while they were already down. Almost a month
after the first of two deadly hurricanes collided with the US Virgin
Islands, the recovery is still in its infancy.
Power
lines droop over the main roads in Charlotte Amalie, the territory’s
capital. More than half of the roof of St Thomas’s commercial
airport no longer exists, replaced with sky blue tarps that ripple in
the breeze. All the territory’s schools remain closed, with hopes
to reopen on Tuesday. Around 90% of the territory is without power
and the vast majority of the population are still without potable
water.
While
the plight of neighbouring Puerto Rico, hit hard by Maria over two
weeks ago, has prompted a national outcry in the face of a slow
federal recovery effort, the continuing crisis on the US Virgin
Islands, home to 100,000 US citizens, has received less focus.
The
White House blamed “difficult logistics” for preventing Donald
Trump from stopping here during his trip to Puerto Rico earlier in
the week. But on Friday vice-president Mike Pence flew into the
American territory’s second island of St Croix, where Maria hit the
hardest. He vowed that the administration “will be with you every
day until the US Virgin Islands comes all the way back”.
The
territory’s governor, Kenneth Mapp, a registered Republican who ran
as an independent, backed the sentiment. “There is no country that
responds to disasters like the United States of America,” he said.
At
around the same time the politicians were speaking, 32-year-old
Tamika Francis was sifting through detritus at the Tutu Hi-Rise
public housing buildings just outside of Charlotte Amalie, where she
lives. Entire facades were blown out – front to back – by Irma. A
38-year-old woman was killed after falling from the building during
the winds, one of five fatalities in the territories. When Maria hit,
two weeks later, it dumped heavy rainfall on to the partially
skeletal building, flooding it once again.
What
is left looks like a bombsite. The remnants of residents’ lives –
refrigerators, mattresses, pots, pans, toilet seats, books – are
strewn in piles on the hilltop.
Although
about 160 of Tutu’s worst-affected families have been relocated to
shelters and given vouchers to find new housing; others, less
affected, had to remain behind. There is no water or electricity.
Francis carries pails collected from the cistern up a steep hill and
flights of stairs to supply her apartment.
“We’ve
been treated like dogs,” she said. “We have to scavenge for food,
for water.”
Velma
Samuel, 62, is a retired teacher’s aide and another resident who
remained in her apartment. She said she had seen no representatives
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the government
agency responsible for disaster management, present at the building
since Irma hit on 6 September.
She
experienced about a foot of flooding in her apartment during Irma and
Maria. It floods again whenever it rains. Mould now creeps up the
walls.
“As
fast as you could clean the mould out, you would find it somewhere
else,” she said.
Even
though the governor has vowed to relocate all of Tutu’s residents,
Samuel worried she would have to continue paying her rent, which is
financed by her social security payments, on the water damaged
apartment while she remained there.
In
Puerto Rico, the governor passed a blanket moratorium on public rent
payment until January 2018. A spokeswoman for the Virgin Islands
territorial emergency management agency [Vitema] said no such
arrangement was in place here.
“The
least they could have done was give us safe living quarters,”
Samuel said, reflecting on the horror of the night Irma hit. “You
can’t just take people and pitch them in a matchbox.”
Irma
drove through more than the sheetrock walls of Tutu Hi-Rise. It
destroyed two floors of t Thomas’s only hospital. The Roy Lester
Schneider hospital can now hold only 23 inpatients. Before Irma
destroyed the main medical wards and peeled off the roof membranes,
it held 169 beds.
Tina
Comissiong Dickson, the hospital’s chief compliance officer, was
one of those wheeling patients down to the lower levels. “It was
very intense,” she said, walking through an upper ward now covered
in mud, dangling wires and pools of water. “The winds and the water
were pounding in.”
Remarkably,
none of the patients were injured. But the hospital has evacuated 300
people to the US. It can no longer conduct significant surgeries, its
cancer ward – the only one in the territory – was entirely
destroyed, and the majority of dialysis patients are now evacuated
too.
When
Maria arrived a week later, with the roof already damaged, the
hospital was flooded once again. The water has not fully receded and
a few inches cover the floor of the cancer center, where Irma’s
winds destroyed the facility’s only MRI scanner. Commissiong
Dickson said the hospital had received significant federal
assistance, but added that it would take an estimated two years to
repair the damage.
Fema
has begun to roll out inspection teams. But, said agency spokeswoman
Renee Baffles, it had been “very difficult” to reach all the
island’s remote communities, many of which have no formal
addresses. More than 14,600 islanders have so far registered for
assistance with Fema, but there are undoubtedly many thousands more
in need of aid.
With
no access to the internet and no working radio or TV, Velma Samuel
and Tamika Francis had no idea how to contact Fema and apply for
assistance. Although the pair had given up hope for their government,
they had not given up on the island itself.
“I
love my island,” said Francis. “I was born and raised here. So no
matter what we go through here, I will never feel like like leaving,”
She
turned back towards the rubble and continued clearing it, piece by
piece.
This
piece was corrected on 8 October 2017. It initially referred to St
Martin. It should have said St Thomas. We also said Irma hit the
islands on 16 September; we should have said 6 September.
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