Puerto Rico disconnect

[billvon 2,395]

Looks like there's a growing disconnect between Washington politicians and what's happening in Puerto Rico.

An interview with San Juan mayor Carmen Cruz:
=================================
Interviewer: We want to understand the discrepancy we are seeing. The acting secretary of homeland security said “this was a good news story about what is happening in Puerto Rico in terms of the ability to reach people. Do you think this is a good news story in terms of reach?

Cruz: (long pause) uh . . . he said that?

Interviewer: Yes, she said --

Cruz: Is that what she said?

Camerota: Elaine Duke, and she's the acting homeland security -- we can play it for you. Hold on, and let us play this for you and our viewers. Listen to this:

"I am very satisfied. I know it's a hard storm to recover from but the amount of progress that has been made -- I really would appreciate any support that we get. I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people, and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane."

Interviewer: Go ahead, mayor.

Cruz: Well, maybe from where she's standing it's a good news story. When you are drinking from a creek, it's not a good news story. When you don't have food for a baby, it's not a good news story.

When you have to pull people down from buildings -- I'm sorry, but that really upsets me and frustrates me. I would ask her to come down here and visit the towns, and then make a statement like that which frankly it's an irresponsible statement and it contrasts with the statements of support that I have been getting since yesterday when I got that call from the white house. This is -- this is not a good news story. This is a people are dying story. This is a life or death story. This is -- there's a truck load of stuff that cannot be taken to people story. This is a story of a devastation that continues to worsen because people are not getting food and water. If I could scream it a lot more louder ... it's not a good news story when people are dying when they don't have dialysis, and when the generators aren't working and the oxygen is not providing for them.
==============

[SkyDekker 1,121]

Plus the 10 day reprieve from the Jones Act is a fucking joke. It does nothing and will actually be used as reasoning as to why the Jones act should be in place, all just to help people get rich off the hurricane and the suffering.

[jakee 1,254]

What does anyone expect to happen as long as Puerto Rico has no representation?

As far as the government is concerned PR might as well be a foreign country, and will get treated in a similar fashion.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[ryoder 1,381]

GOP senators want to permanently exempt Puerto Rico from Jones Act
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/352917-gop-senators-introduce-measure-exempting-puerto-rico-from-jones-act

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[kallend 1,623]

jakee

What does anyone expect to happen as long as Puerto Rico has no representation?

As far as the government is concerned PR might as well be a foreign country, and will get treated in a similar fashion.

The USA is one of the last remaining colonial powers. The people of the various territories are 3rd and 4th class citizens (and some are not even entitled to that).

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,395]

San Juan mayor today: "I will do what I never thought I was going to do. I am begging, begging anyone that can hear us, to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency."

Trump today: "It's been incredible. The results that we've had with respect to loss of life."

Trump keeps using that word. I do not think that word means what he thinks it means.

[billvon 2,395]

Quote

If she needs bottled water and baby food for babies in San Juan, she needs to get off of CNN, get her fanny down to the docks and get it. It's all right there. What's stopping you?

Yes, I am sure all the problems in San Juan are due to not having enough 50+ year old women to unload the ships there.

[billvon 2,395]

Quote

Was it the responsibility of Cruz and the PR government to have the crews, trucks, and NG ready to receive, secure, and transport or is this a sit back and wait for FEMA and regular military to show up and do it for them situation?

I think it's a "do as much as they can on their own and ask for help for the rest" sort of situation.

[yoink 321]

Iago

If she needs bottled water and baby food for babies in San Juan, she needs to get off of CNN, get her fanny down to the docks and get it. It's all right there. What's stopping you? You're the Mayor Senora Cruz and this is your responsibility.

She has the ability and authority to get on international TV and ask the entire world for help in this crisis and your position is that her time would be better spent manually lifting crates of supplies?
That's like me saying in the Houston flooding the best thing Trump could do would be to personally go and give people food. It's stupid and a waste of their authority.

If this was YOUR home state in the same position as Puerto Rico I bet you wouldn't only be whining about the inefficiencies of your elected officials. You'd be screaming to high heaven about the clusterfuck of YOUR federal government for not being able to distribute aid properly.

[jakee 1,254]

Quote

Oh I'm sorry, my mistake. I had the impression that it would be the responsibility of Senora Cruz and the other Island leadership to have their truckers, NG soldiers, and logistics in place to distribute the initial relief supplies around the island. Oh geez, where is my head on that one. What a crazy idea.

That comes with the assumption that the already bankrupt (if PR was allowed to go bankrupt to relieve it's crippling debt obligations) and now storm battered infrastructure of the island is sufficient to distribute emergency supplies as needed without further assistance.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Phil1111 910]

I understand your point. But IMO Mayors have very limited authority. Certainly they can"t go to the dock and grab containers owned by FEMA or private concerns. Order the captains of ships to release cargo's.

No fuel, no comms,no electrical, no water. No federal leadership for the first week either.

Wait breaking news!!

"Trump slams Puerto Rico: ‘They want everything to be done for them’
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/353216-trump-criticizes-san-juan-mayors-poor-leadership-during-puerto-rico
Trump: 'Fake news' is trying to 'disparage' first responders in Puerto Rico
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/353217-trump-fake-news-is-trying-to-disparage-first-responders-in-puerto
'Not enough' troops, equipment in Puerto Rico, says general in charge of relief
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/353137-not-enough-troops-equipment-in-puerto-rico-says-general-in-charge-of-relief

[kallend 1,623]

Iago

Oh I'm sorry, my mistake.

Yes, it was. The services over which the mayor has any control are largely destroyed, which is why external assistance is required, just like it was for Katrina and Harvey.

Your posts just indicate the same attitudes to the little people that Trump exhibits.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,395]

> Every local from the Nino to the Abuelita that could swing a machete or pick up a
> branch was out clearing their neighborhood . . . .

And they're not done yet? Why should the fed come down to help lazy people who don't care enough to get the job done in a timely manner? Why aren't you helping, instead of complaining on the Internet ?

Fortunately everyone doesn't share your view. Here's a story on some lazy entitled homeless people's take on Puerto Rico:
==========================
Detroit's formerly homeless to make solar panels for Puerto Rico

Kristen Jordan Shamus
Sept. 30, 2017

Formerly homeless men and women from Detroit will work to literally empower the people of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, building portable solar panels that are to be delivered to the island.

The Rev. Faith Fowler, executive director of Cass Community Social Services, told the Free Press that supplies to build 15 portable solar panels have been ordered and are on their way to the nonprofit's Green Industries, where they'll be assembled for hurricane relief.

She is among the Michiganders hoping to bring some aid to the devastation on the island caused by Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that struck Sept. 20, felling electrical towers, poles and power lines in its path. It left most of the island's 3.4 million residents with limited or in many cases no access to food, clean drinking water, electricity, gasoline and cell phone service.

The 100-watt, 12-volt polycrystalline portable solar panels can be used to charge cell phones, computers, or run fans or lights or even small refrigerators.

"Basically, they collect the rays from the sun, which is good for Puerto Rico because they have a lot of sun. They convert the sun's rays into energy that gets stored on a battery that items can draw from; things can be plugged in," she said.

Access to refrigeration, Fowler said, is vital for people whose medication must be kept cold.

"Especially when you think about insulin," she said. "Those folks are really in trouble. We thought that would be magnificent because a lot of people can’t access gasoline or generators. And when you’re talking about 6 months without electricity, it just frightens me."
=============

[yoink 321]

Iago

Oh I'm sorry, my mistake. I had the impression that it would be the responsibility of Senora Cruz and the other Island leadership to have their truckers, NG soldiers, and logistics in place to distribute the initial relief supplies around the island.

It's not exactly a difficult idea to think up is it? Thinking that maybe you should be trying to organize your people to distribute the aid that does exist?

But you seem to be of the opinion that she's sitting on her arse doing nothing except bleating for help and blaming everyone else.
It's completely illogical - if nothing else it's in her own self interest to get aid distributed.

So here's a thought. Maybe she's doing whatever she can to organize her people, but is hampered by the catastrophic destruction that is affecting her country so she's asking for more help from HER government.

I'm glad you're done here. Your attitude towards helping other US citizens is pretty shitty IMO. I say again, if this was YOUR state, you're be crying bloody murder if the government was bollixing aid distribution up like this.

[Phil1111 910]

yoink

***
I'm glad you're done here. Your attitude towards helping other US citizens is pretty shitty IMO. I say again, if this was YOUR state, you're be crying bloody murder if the government was bollixing aid distribution up like this.

I think he is from PR.

His support for trump clouds his judgement as to how good a job the Feds. can do.

[AlanS 1]

Iago

Oh I'm sorry, my mistake. I had the impression that it would be the responsibility of Senora Cruz and the other Island leadership to have their truckers, NG soldiers, and logistics in place to distribute the initial relief supplies around the island. Oh geez, where is my head on that one. What a crazy idea.

And that was a metaphorical reference to her going down to the docks and getting it herself. As in get your truckers back in line, get them down to the docks, and get the supplies out where they need to go. But, that never happened so here they are a week later with the Army taking over and FEMA flying in drivers from the mainland.

Iago, since you were on the island during the storm and know that area, your posts in the forum carry more weight with me that those who were not on the island. Thanks for posting.

[Bob_Church 7]

"Puerto Rican born and raised, Colonel Michael A. Valle (”Torch”), Commander, 101st Air and Space Operations Group, and Director of the Joint Air Component Coordination Element, 1st Air Force, responsible for Hurricane Maria relief efforts, has the following comment:

…They have the generators, water, food, medicine, and fuel on the ground, yet the supplies are not moving across the island as quickly as they’re needed.

“It’s a lack of drivers for the transport trucks, the 18 wheelers. Supplies we have. Trucks we have. There are ships full of supplies, backed up in the ports, waiting to have a vehicle to unload into. However, only 20% of the truck drivers show up to work. These are private citizens in Puerto Rico, paid by companies that are contracted by the government”.. (link)

The ports are so full of relief supplies they can’t fit any more on the available space. CNBC ground report confirms Colonel Valle’s ground report"

[Bob_Church 7]

Iago, are the Teamsters on strike there? It's hard to get reliable info from the press.

[billvon 2,395]

>They have the generators, water, food, medicine, and fuel on the ground, yet the
>supplies are not moving across the island as quickly as they’re needed.

It's almost as if some mysterious force came and destroyed all the roads.

Trump tweeted his latest attacks on Puerto Rico while at the golf course. But lest anyone think that he was playing golf rather working on the problem, he gave Puerto Rico a golf trophy.

There have been many theories posted here about why the ~60 deaths in Puerto Rico wasn't enough to get Trump in high gear, or indeed even get him to stop his usual attacks on the victims - and why fewer deaths than that in Las Vegas got his immediate (and personal) attention. It's his real estate deals in Puerto Rico! It's that he doesn't feel for the people of Puerto Rico but he does connect with people who live in Vegas. He can't stand anyone who criticizes him for any reason; it wasn't about Puerto Rico but about a mayor who did not show him obesiance. It's payback for all their unpaid loans. It's racism. It's because he thinks Puerto Rico isn't part of the US.

I think it's a lot simpler than all that. It's just that he is an asshole.

[normiss 622]

It would seem PR requires significantly more security to provide aid to.
Whatever the hell that means.

[wmw999 2,120]

Nah, it's valid. People have enough to do in PR without escorting the president. Vegas, the shooter is dead.
But the response to PR is still clueless; the fact that it took a much more significant and generalized hit than either Houston or Florida seems to have escaped FEMA. And the FACT that both PR and the USVI have just as much claim on FEMA as Texas and Florida also seems to have escaped them.
Not that the US has endless resources. Just that acknowledging that Puerto Rico is worth as much as Houston would be good.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[gowlerk 1,905]

Quote

I think it's a lot simpler than all that. It's just that he is an asshole.

And a dotard as well. A real asshole dotard.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[Phil1111 910]

normiss

It would seem PR requires significantly more security to provide aid to.
Whatever the hell that means.

I was in PR about seven years ago. The San Juan newspaper would have two murders a day on the third page. Plus another 1/2 dozen stabbings and misc drug deal-seizure-shootout.

It ain't no Virgin Islands.

But its far, far better than Honduras.

[billvon 2,395]

> If the local labor isn't planned, staged, and available from the local government
> the operation fails.

Yep. Like all those New Yorkers responsible for not dealing with the city's problems after 9/11 quickly enough, and demanding all sorts of help from the feds. Some people just can't take responsibility for themselves.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

Iago

***> If the local labor isn't planned, staged, and available from the local government
> the operation fails.

Yep. Like all those New Yorkers responsible for not dealing with the city's problems after 9/11 quickly enough, and demanding all sorts of help from the feds. Some people just can't take responsibility for themselves.

Wow, that is just incredible.

In what way?

Seriously, after Texas & Florida got hit, there was a huge outpouring of support. State, local, federal, media, social media, sports figures, everything.

It was handled well.

After Puerto Rico got hit, the public response was non-existent.

When Trump said "we're doing a fantastic job", it was clearly not the case.
When the mayor said "we need help", Trump and all the "Trumpettes" attack her.

What.
The.
Fuck.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo