Days were lost: Why Puerto Rico is still suffering a month after Hurricane Maria

[nitpicker]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article179744081.html

Days were lost’: Why Puerto Rico is still suffering a month after Hurricane Maria

By Patricia Mazzei And Omaya Sosa Pascual

MAUNABO, Puerto Rico —

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A month has passed since Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, and the island continues to operate in emergency mode, struggling to do even the basics: save lives, protect property, provide drinking water, turn on the lights. Time ticks away in a hazy state of permanent disaster, a catastrophe born from the worst storm to cross Puerto Rico in 85 years — and of a slow recovery by the federal, state and local governments.
(snip)

The blame for the unsatisfactory response, the Miami Herald and Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism found, lies with bureaucracies that were unprepared for a collapsed communications system and overwhelmed by the logistical challenges of aiding an island left with no corner unharmed. Even the White House appeared indifferent to the needs of 3.4 million American citizens 1,000 miles from its shores. Above all, strapped finances that plunged the island into an economic tailspin long before any winds arrived left the state government so thinly stretched it could not maintain its power grid or afford extensive preparations for a monster storm –– much less pay for the sort of recovery that would be demanded in the mainland U.S..
(snip)

Much remains to be learned about the recovery flaws Maria exposed. But disaster managers already know the historic storm —which has required more FEMA food and water distribution than any other disaster — will force them to rethink how they approach a worst-case scenario that ordinary plans were ill-equipped to deal with in the systemic breakdown that followed landfall.
(snip)

The local Federal Emergency Management Administration chief, Alejandro De La Campa, had bedded down — along with some 300 FEMA workers still responding to Hurricane Irma — at a Caguas warehouse. It was restocked with the standard number of provisions FEMA stored ahead of any storm, no matter its size: about 700,000 liters of water and half a million meals. They proved to be woefully insufficient: The supplies ran out in two days. Puerto Rico had never needed a larger emergency stash. Not much more fit in the warehouse, De La Campa told the Herald/CPI, acknowledging that a bigger building — perhaps twice as large — might now be necessary.
(snip)

The only reason Hurricane Irma two weeks earlier hadn’t depleted the stores, he added, was because that storm skirted Puerto Rico and mostly hurt the island’s northern coast — meaning southern municipalities could aid their neighbors without tapping all the federal provisions. Maria offered no such respite, affecting all of the island’s 78 municipalities and leaving the government without an intact oasis from where to stage its response.
(snip)

In contrast, six days before Irma hit Florida, the state filed its first request through the Emergency Mutual Aid Compact available to states and territories. Florida ultimately made 99 requests before landfall. The number of requests Puerto Rico made before Maria: Zero.

PREPA, the bankrupt power utility, which is $9 billion in debt and locked in a court battle with its bondholders, could also have requested aid after Maria hit through the American Public Power Association, a mutual aid trade network for some 1,100 electrical utilities. Texas and Florida did after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. That’s partly how, 10 days after Irma, Florida utilities restored power to 98 percent of the 6.7 million customers who had gone dark. But PREPA didn’t tap the aid network.

Instead, Ramos chose to hire one of two companies that had answered PREPA’s request for proposals for far less restoration work after Irma, but had not yet been hired: Whitefish Energy Holdings, a small, little-known Montana firm formed only two years ago. The other bidder, which Ramos declined to name, had demanded a $25 million payment guarantee up front, Ramos said. PREPA’s emergency fund had only $100 million, which Ramos feared would be quickly exhausted if he hired another public utility to assist with repairs. PREPA “doesn’t have the cash to cover all the expenses,” Ramos said. “I’d have to pay it to later seek reimbursement. It’s a cash-flow problem.” The New York Power Authority did send crews the day after the storm after Puerto Rico asked New York directly for help. Whitefish later contracted with Jacksonville’s JEA public utility and the Kissimmee Utility Authority to provide additional line workers. PREPA also hired 60 local contractors, Ramos said, but still didn’t have enough line workers or utility trucks — and couldn’t immediately welcome more, either: The government had no gas for trucks and no food or housing for crews.
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[Not Ruth]

1. IMHO 4,000+ died

Why is this not mentioned?

Every single person in the ICU died.

Hospital morgues filled with rotting corpses.

[Mariana]

4. Prove it. That's what they'll say.

Do you have a picture of a hospital morgue filled with rotting corpses? Does anyone? I suspect there are a whole lot more dead than the official number, but no one's going to report that hospital morgues are filled with rotting corpses without very compelling evidence.

[Not Ruth]

5. Normal death rate of 82/day times 30 days equals 2500+

Add the multiplier for the hurricane. Pretty straightforward.

Without a hurricane, 82 people die on Puerto Rico daily (3.411 million population, 8.8 per thousand annual death rate, 365 days in a year)

[tanyev]

2. "Even the White House appeared indifferent"??

I'd say that's where most of the indifference originated.

[uponit7771]

3. +1