The Puerto Rico Thread

Mumbles said:
Yeah, some of us were needling Cheeto Benito to look into what supplies were being sent to Puerto Rico. I kinda closed Twitter for a bit out of..angerpression?

Sounds like they're about...90% without power.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York visited - here's a link to what he said. You can let the autoplay (I know) keep going after it seems to stop. I thought Sen. Marco Rubio was going to fly in as well, but I've been away from news for a bit. Good news is it seems like they're getting some help. Bad news is, not nearly enough.

Even at the airport down there, sounded like chaos - supply planes being flown in, but little real coordination, Air Control out. And those are the tourists. Plus, likely quite a few more looking to get out.

The big problem near that dam, as far as I can tell, is that they have one AM station left on the island that cuts in and out, and no other way to tell those nearby to evacuate.

I'm an electrical engineer, not civil, but my guess is that, for the most vulnerable people, the more immediate need may not be food, but rather clean water (with cooling and medicine also being vital). Please, do not hold me to that, ever. But in any case, this is likely a good place to send in the US Navy.


Hopefully, now that Maria's starting to move up the coast, they can start moving in full force. I hope the folks on the ground there are getting info out ASAP, and that the Joint Chiefs are prepared to put together a serious plan to aid as many people as possible.
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And fuel. Diesel for generators to fire up the hospital back-up systems.
 
Hmm, here's a thought: Donald Trump is born and bred New Yorker. The idea that he doesn't understand, or get, Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans puzzles me. (Doesn't he have some hotels there?) Then again, maybe they are beneath his gaze. Dunno. While the either or on all that may not stop him from being a (rule 10) since he's, ya know, from New York, the Latino card some of you are playing utterly lacks context.
Let's give this 48 more hours and see.
 
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How bad is it in Puerto Rico?

After Hurricane Maria clobbered Puerto Rico midweek, the U.S. military announced Saturday that it plans to relocate its foreign disaster relief task force based there to other islands in the Caribbean.
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Even our disaster relief experts are bailing out. Gotta be able to take care of St. Martins.

Of course, little things like this will make a big difference.

After World War I, America was worried about German U-boats, which had sunk nearly 5,000 ships during the war. Congress enacted the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, a.k.a. the Jones Act, to ensure that the country maintained a shipbuilding industry and seafaring labor force. Section 27 of this law decreed that only American ships could carry goods and passengers from one United States port to another. In addition, every ship must be built, crewed and owned by American citizens.
Almost a century later, there are no U-boats lurking off the coast of Puerto Rico. The Jones Act has outlived its original intent, yet it is strangling the island’s economy.
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Not only has it outlived it's original intent. It's original intent has been dead for a long time. The U.S. merchant fleet is a tiny fraction of what it was in it's heyday, and has been for decades. Congress has shown no sign of caring about that for at least that long.


Continuing;



Under the law, any foreign registry vessel that enters Puerto Rico must pay punitive tariffs, fees and taxes, which are passed on to the Puerto Rican consumer.


The foreign vessel has one other option: It can reroute to Jacksonville, Fla., where all the goods will be transferred to an American vessel, then shipped to Puerto Rico where — again — all the rerouting costs are passed through to the consumer.
Thanks to the law, the price of goods from the United States mainland is at least double that in neighboring islands, including the United States Virgin Islands, ...
A 2012 report by two University of Puerto Rico economists found that the Jones Act caused a $17 billion loss to the island’s economy from 1990 through 2010. Other studies have estimated the Jones Act’s damage to Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska to be $2.8 billion to $9.8 billion per year. According to all these reports, if the Jones Act did not exist, then neither would the public debt of Puerto Rico.
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So they get to pay extra for the stuff they can get.

Trump has this under control.

As of yesterday;
The Trump administration says it is not planning to waive federal restrictions on foreign ships’ transportation of cargo to Puerto Rico and other areas affected by Hurricane Maria, as it did following hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security says officials believe there is sufficient capacity of U.S.-flagged vessels to move goods to Puerto Rico. Spokesman David Lapan said most of the humanitarian shipments to Puerto Rico will be through barges, which make up a significant portion of the U.S.-flagged cargo fleet.
DHS waived Jones Act restrictions during Harvey and Irma in order to move oil more quickly to the East Coast and make up for the loss of pipelines.
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Making sure that people who hadn't suffered any damage from hurricanes don't have to pay too much for their fuel is important.


The people without anything left at all in Puerto Rico ... not so much. Not if it means cutting into someone's profit margins
 
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Someone else started another thread, and I already posted in that one, but I'll put it here, too.

It seems to me that someone in the White House, with heavy involvement of the president himself, ought to be asking, "What will it take to get one power plant up and running, and get electricity delivered to one major hospital in San Juan?" And then promise the airlift capabilities of an airborne division to transport whatever people and heavy equipment they need to get there, and I might add whatever construction crews are necessary to make that happen.

That's not an ordinary situation, or an ordinary response.

If they could establish that one power line, it would give them an operational base that is normal, and would aid all the other hundreds of workers trying to do the more mundane work of distributing food, water, and gasoline.
 
I read an unsupported comment that even if the Jones act were waived (as has been done before), there are currently no port facilities to deal with the shipping. That's still not a reason to avoid waiving the rule, as port facilities, whether existing or brought in, will be coming.
 
I heard a piece on NPR this evening. No hospitals in Puerto Rico are connected to the grid. Many have closed. The ones that are open are running on backup generators. Virtually no doctors offices or clinics are open.

As best I can tell from news articles, there are very few places with running water. If that's accurate, that means three million people can't flush their toilets. That's a big problem.

I know we aren't supposed to politicize things. Seriously. It's stupid to look at every situation that arises and have the first thing in your head be "How does this affect the president?" However, in this case, it's fair. If news reports are to be believed, what is happening in Puerto Rico is a true crisis, and one that cannot be solved by ordinary measures. FEMA can send hundreds of people, but those people are laptop jockeys and haulers. They have rules, and regulations, and procedures.

What Puerto Rico needs is someone who can say, "We need a construction crane on a hilltop 20 miles Southeast of San Juan. If you can get it to San Juan, we'll have the road built by the time you get there. And keep track of expenses and we'll send you a check." They need someone to cut through regular order, throw the rules out the window if need be, and move Heaven and Earth to get the job done, drawing on the best military and civilian assets available to get the job done.

Only the president can make that happen, which means that if it isn't happening, it's the president's fault.

If things are half as bad as the sketchy news reports suggest, he really needs to get on the stick. This could be bad.
 
McHrozni said:
The US navy has 9 amphibious assault ships that can load and airlift an entire Marine battalion if they have to, plus 10 amphibious transport docks which can operate Ospreys and land amphibious units which can be, if necessary, loaded with stuff other than military vechiles. They should have enough lifting capacity between them to significantly ease the problems on the island. Marine engineers should be able to build a few temporary ports within 48 hours if necessary.

As far as I know Nimitz-class carriers are equipped to function as movable power plants if the need arises, they did it during the Indian ocean tsunami IIRC. US has another 10 of those, I'm sure the navy can spare one for a week.

In short, Trump has all the tools necessary to truly make a difference in Puerto Rico and no excuse not to help out. It's a US territory FFS, not even a foreign country.

McHrozni
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I wonder if it's worth it to sink the money into making a couple or four "Disaster Relief Ships." Converted oil tankers (like the Mercy Class Hospital Ships) that have a hospital, power generator, fresh water generation facilities, and basic supplies humanitarian supplies.
 
William Parcher said:
I wonder how many poor and/or rural Puerto Ricans don't have flush toilets.
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I'm guessing very close to zero.

The world isn't like the one we grew up in. Poor countries aren't filled with mud huts and grass roofs. No matter how poor they are, you can't have a city of 2 million people (San Juan), without flush toilets.

And I was very, very, surprised when I read about the Puerto Rican economy. on Wikipedia. The mainstay of their economy is....drum roll please......pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Yes, there are a lot of poor people, and the drug companies are there for tax breaks and cheap labor, but this isn't Gilligan's Island. It's a modern world. Or at least, it was until last week.
 
William Parcher said:
I wonder how many poor and/or rural Puerto Ricans don't have flush toilets.
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It's not Somalia Haiti*. :rolleyes:

Hard to find exact data, there have been EPA efforts to get the sewer system on a better footing. I'm sure a lot of people have septic systems, but I doubt you'd see many outhouses except in the most rural areas.

The Loney Planet Travel Guide says:
Toilets in hotels and restaurants are normally of a good standard.
Toilets are sit-down, just like they are in mainland US.
Public toilets are none too common.
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*Joe had a better example.
 
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Here's something interesting: FEMA's discussion of the Jones Act.

https://www.fema.gov/hurricane-maria?utm_source=hp_promo&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=disaster

Summary: The reason for the waiver of the Jones act following Harvey and Irma was not to get aid in. It was to get oil out. Those hurricanes disrupted pipelines that carried fuel from Texas to the east coast. Absent those pipelines, there was not enough American flagged capacity to supply fuel. In Puerto Rico, there's plenty of ship space to get things in. The limitation is harbor capacity. Extra shipping wouldn't help.

I'm not sure that's the full story, but it's certainly plausible.
 
quadraginta said:
This is a perfect example of the sort of uninformed, scornful, and dismissive attitude being taken toward the disaster in Puerto Rico.

'It's just a bunch of brown people. How much worse off can they be?'

:rolleyes:
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WTF? The word "wonder" is in there because I don't know. There is no scorn or dismiss in my question. The mention of "brown people" by you and Joe is totally out of context for my question.

Shame on you!
 
William Parcher said:
WTF? The word "wonder" is in there because I don't know. There is no scorn or dismiss in my question. The mention of "brown people" by you and Joe is totally out of context for my question.

Shame on you!
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Did you "wonder" how many Texans and Floridians didn't have flushing toilets when Irma and Harvey hit?
 
JoeBentley said:
Did you "wonder" how many Texans and Floridians didn't have flushing toilets when Irma and Harvey hit?
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That's a non sequitur. My question had no relation to skin color. I never wondered about the mix of flush toilets and hurricane damage until it was mentioned that everybody has one in PR. I wondered if that's actually true.

It's a legitimate question about the universality of indoor plumbing and has nothing to do with racism.
 
No it's not.

Puerto Rico is part of the United States. It is not reasonable to question whether it's a third world country or not.
 
I didn't ask if PR is third world. I'm curious if some poor or rural don't have plumbing. If true, it doesn't make the place third world.

This persecution of curiosity is ridiculous.
 
*Sighs*

According to the CIA World Factbook 99.3% of the population has access to "indoor plumbing / sanitation facilities."

Also they have paved roads and electricity if you're just "wondering" about that as well.
 
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