After pleas for more help, Pentagon sends one-star general to lead Puerto Rico recovery

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post




By Dan Lamothe September 27 at 1:39 PM

The Pentagon will expand its response to the devastation in Puerto Rico left by Hurricane Maria, deploying a one-star Army general along with more aircraft, a hospital ship and a variety of specialized units all focused on surging relief efforts.

The moves followed a visit by Federal Emergency Management Agency Director William “Brock” Long, and after the U.S. military re-opened two major airfields capable of handling the Pentagon’s massive cargo jets. Army Brig. Gen. Richard C. Kim, the deputy commanding general of U.S. Army North, will coordinate operations and make sense of what more is needed, defense officials said.

People in Puerto Rico have been desperate for more help, and many have criticized the federal government’s decision making. Pentagon officials have defended the military’s response, however, saying it has supplied everything FEMA has requested while preparing for a long-term recovery effort.

Combined, there are currently about 5,000 active-duty U.S. service members and National Guardsmen on duty assisting Puerto Rico, including more than a thousand who work from the USS Kearsarge and USS Oak Hill, ships deployed off the coast of Puerto Rico, said Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. Far more were involved in the recent responses to Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/27/after-pleas-for-more-help-pentagon-sends-one-star-general-to-lead-puerto-rico-recovery

[Bayard]

1. About damn time!

[MiniMe]

2. Agree, it is a week after the Hurricane, and the dish*ts never thought to stage the help operation?

[pfitz59]

3. To be Fair. Puerto Rico is the responsibility of Southern Command, based in Miami

but they have their own problems recovering from Irma. Trump could have set contingency plans in motion, if he wasn't such a shit-head.

[Igel]

4. And at the same time, PR's radars were knocked out.

It's fine to say planes should land every 3 minutes, but if there's no radar that's asking for trouble.

Then once the supplies are on the ground you have to transport them. The roads weren't cleared. Some are trashed and are impassable. And the further from the airports, the harder it is to get trucks through to the area.

You get gasoline out to gas station around the country, and you realize what anybody who's gone to a gas station in an area with a power outage learns: you need electricity for the pumps.

The ports were trashed. It took a day or two to get one open.

Before you ship in a lot of stuff, you need the infrastructure; before you feed the people, you need to make sure there's the means to get the food to the people and to store what isn't eaten at once. It takes a web of infrastructure to support the island's population. That web needs to be reconstituted, and that will be gradually. You can't restore electricity without getting trucks through, so you need to focus on roads

The emphasis is on San Juan, of course, because it's the largest concentration of people, it's where the open port and airport are, it doesn't rely on rural roads that were washed out.

[TomSlick]

5. Don't buy it.

The Air Force has the air traffic control going. If the harbor is a shambles, it's only because the Navy CBs and Army Engineers haven't been deployed.

Logistics is what the Military does best - logistics win wars. If this was given the level of attention that would be given a war, the problem would be solved by now. It was done in Haiti, it surely could have been done in San Juan.