As some Puerto Rico mayors stumble, U.S. militarizes relief campaign

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Source: McClatchy


As some Puerto Rico mayors stumble, U.S. militarizes relief campaign.

By Tim Johnson

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October 08, 2017 6:17 PM

AGUADILLA, Puerto Rico —


As U.S. soldiers Sunday handed out dozens of boxes of emergency food and water rations in this coastal town, a federal relief official pronounced himself satisfied. “They seem pretty happy right now. I think it’s going great,” said Patrick Hernandez, assistant administrator for field operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Just a few feet away, Serafin Roman looked through cyclone fencing at the distribution scene and offered a radically different view: “It’s nasty. People are desperate. They got no water.... Some people are
The scene put a vivid spotlight on the gap between some government views of relief efforts for Hurricane Maria, and a somewhat testier view on the street. In some corners of Puerto Rico, deep into the third week of recovery efforts, a smattering of Puerto Ricans said they feel forgotten and vulnerable. Residents and city officials often tell drastically different stories about the frequency of food distribution. starving.”

Responding to the evolving crisis, U.S. military officials spelled out Sunday how they will alter the distribution of food, water and fuel to many of the island’s 78 municipalities, militarizing relief efforts in a significant way as some mayors stumble on the job. Prior to this weekend, relief supplies were delivered to 10 regional staging areas on the island, and mayors were largely responsible for arranging pick-up and distribution. But Brig. Gen. Jose J. Reyes, assistant adjutant general of the Puerto Rico National Guard, said in an interview that a new strategy calls for placing 10 to 20 soldiers in each municipality, providing them with vehicles and logistical support, and tasking them with delivering relief to each neighborhood. “We need to push it directly to the barrio to ensure that everyone’s getting it,” Reyes said. “They will have some vehicles. They will have radio communications as well as logistics support.... They are going to be living there. They are going to be operating 24/7.” In Puerto Rico’s 10 largest cities, each with a population greater than 150,000 people, city halls will continue to manage distribution, Reyes said, but not so in the smaller towns.

The commander of relief efforts, Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, acknowledged that distribution of aid on the municipal level has not always gone smoothly. “We’re relentless in looking for areas that are bottlenecks,” Buchanan said at a San Juan airfield before boarding a helicopter for Aguadilla, some 80 miles to the west of the capital. “We shouldn’t pretend that this is going to be pain-free,” he said, noting that mayors can feel a variety of constraints in delivering aid, from damaged roads and lack of vehicles to poor communications and large geographical areas with sparse population.

Some anger was palpable Sunday at the relief distribution scene in Aguadilla. But that sentiment of frustration is not uniform. Some municipalities are handling relief efforts much better than other ones. Among the hardest hit areas from the Sept. 20 hurricane, some are so remote that they require ongoing helicopter air-drops of food and water due to impassable roads.
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[Yussie143]

1. United

We know that there's a lot of disasters happening in US lately, people needs to be united and care each other. We need to be united to be able to recover in this circumstances.