Six months after the Hurricanes of 2017, a tale of experiences and lessons learned (Vanity)

Now that the hoopla about the Trump Administration’s “poor response” to the hurricanes that hit the U.S. Territories in the Caribbean last September has died down considerably, and since my life has now almost returned to normal, I’d like to share my experiences during the storms and their aftermath. I do this to set some things straight about what actually happened, to share the practical things we did to deal and cope with the disaster in the hope that someone will find the information useful for their own preparedness, and also as a kind of mental dump of all the stress and aggravation we went through to refresh my mind in preparation for the new hurricane season which is only a little over two months away.

I hope that the reader will appreciate the thoughts of someone who was there, to understand what we went through, and that the lessons learned are useful to anyone who cares. I’ll structure this in prose as events happened, with as little sugarcoating or drama as possible. Just trying to be practical.

THE SCENARIO. I live in mid-town San Juan, Puerto Rico. This is a well-developed modern part of the city, about two miles inland, with adequate infrastructure and near everything you need (supermarkets, malls, hardware stores, hospitals, schools, highways – all the conveniences of a small city). My home is built of reinforced concrete equipped with storm windows, a 300-gallon cistern, and a small Yamaha 2600 generator that I hadn’t used in over 10 years and sat in a closet, wanting for adequate maintenance (more on that life-saving device later). My business is also in San Juan, but closer to the Atlantic Ocean, two blocks from the beach. Just outside the 100-year flood mark. This area is much older than where I live, with aging infrastructure. But it is the “touristy” area of San Juan. Our building is equipped with a 22K Generac propane/natural gas backup generator, a 600-gallon cistern and rollup storm shutters.

Puerto Rico is located 1,000 miles southeast of Miami, between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The island is about the size of Connecticut, with similar population. The terrain is mountainous, with broad coastal plains to the north and south. We’re located smack in the middle of Hurricane Alley, but because we make a relatively small target, storms miss us more often than not. This is anecdotal, but we get seriously hit every ten years or so, which breeds complacency. Our last major storm was Hurricane Georges in 1998. Since then we’ve had numerous smaller storms which compared to Irma and María were just nuisances. Again, we had become complacent and were not ready, although I don’t think anyone can be ever ready enough for two back-to-back category 5 hurricanes.

PREPPING. Complacency is your biggest enemy. Ideally, preparation for the storm season should begin on June 1st. if you want to push it, and know that your area is usually hit during, say, late August or September as is our case, then you should be ready by the end of July. The usual stuff. Trim your trees, clean your yard, clear your gutters, stock up on non-perishable food, water and fuel for your vehicles and backup generators. The government suggests that you and your family should be able to sustain yourselves for three days after the storm, a period after which things should start to return to normal: roads cleared, basic services starting to get restored, stores open and the government there for you. Excuse my French but BULLSHIT. As we learned, you need to be able to sustain yourself and your family for a minimum of three WEEKS. By now that should be obvious to anyone, but in case it isn’t, I’ll explain further after my description of the storms, below. In any case, complacency got the best of me and I wasn’t ready when the hurricane watch for Irma was issued. Thankfully, I was doing some business in the Army base here so I was able to rush to the Commissary and stock up on food and water before the panic buying began. I still had time to work on the yard and the roof and such, but it was too late to find someone to work on my little gasoline generator, which as I said had been sitting in storage for years. I’d regret that real soon.

THE STORMS. Except for my time in the U.S. Army, I’ve lived all my life in San Juan. So, I’ve had my share of tropical storms and hurricanes during my lifetime (I’m in my early 50s). Believe it or not, since the modernization of Puerto Rico, particularly the San Juan Metropolitan Area (I’m sure people up in the mountains will disagree with this), tropical weather is usually a festive occasion. Like a snow day up north. You prepare for it, you endure it for a few days, then you move on. While it is happening, you make the best of the situation. The anticipation of a storm is even hilarious, when everyone becomes a weather expert predicting what will happen. When a storm misses us, many people are disappointed for having wasted so many resources in preparation, and actually curse that “we should have been hit and now it is back to normal”. Oh, what a silly attitude that is. Little did we know that this time getting back to normal would take half a year. If ever, for some. The 2017 hurricanes were a completely different animal.

Hurricane Irma. People talk about “direct hits” from hurricanes. They focus on where the eyewall is and where is it going. They say that Irma “skirted” Puerto Rico, after dealing the northern Leeward Islands just east of us a severe, “direct” blow. If you live in or near hurricane-prone regions, you know how dumb that notion is. Hurricanes are hundreds of miles across and while the eyewall is supposed to have the worst of it, for hundreds of miles around it the danger from strong winds and torrential rain is nearly as bad. Or even worse. The eye moves relatively quickly over an area but the whole of the storm lingers for hours and even days, both anticipating the eyewall and then tailing it. In Puerto Rico’s case, the eyewall passed 30 miles north of the island, but that was close enough to cause extensive damage. That was the one punch. The hit was bad enough to leave us in a weakened state, without any time to recover for what would happen in less than two weeks. If Irma had been it for the season – and it was plenty – Puerto Rico was pretty much on its feet ten days later. Or so it seemed. The electric power grid of the island – precarious even on a good day – was only patched up. But at least we thought we were almost done with the season. In fact, many people naively, after seeing the devastation from Irma in the Leeward Islands, started donating their own hurricane supplies to the victims there. In hindsight, a nice humanitarian gesture but a big mistake. Sorry to say this but everyone should hold on to their supplies until the end of November. Now we know.

The aftermath of Irma wasn’t too bad for those in San Juan. My bachelor apartment near my house, which I still own and was vacant but still furnished, got power back in a little over 24 hours after the storm had past, so I was able to move my family there until we got power back at home four days later. My business was without utility power for ten days, but our Generac backup power plant held up non-stop for the entire time. The only challenge was getting the gas refills, as we had opted for propane tanks instead of being hooked to the natural gas line that runs along our street. The gas truck had difficulty filling orders for so many clients without power and many roads were still blocked or damaged. The natural gas pipeline in our area had held up without problems. Even if natural gas is more expensive than propane gas (at least in the islands it is), this is something to think about: delayed deliveries. On the generator, the book says to change the oil every 200 hours of operation. But our maintenance guy says that that is under normal circumstances. Than on emergency situations where the generator is run hard, the oil must be changed every 100 hours. I am glad we did. We would need a reliable backup for what was to come next.

Hurricane Maria. Imagine an F2 tornado the size of your state roaring clear across the entire length of it for 12 – 16 hours. That’s what happened in Puerto Rico. And the roar. Oh, the ROAR! I’ve never experienced anything like this, even after being through so many storms and hurricanes. Usually you get the woooo-wishhhhh howling sound or whistle from the storm, which is scary enough. This time it was different. On top of the usual wind and rain noise, we got THE ROAR. I cannot describe it well enough. It was as if a jet engine at full power was sitting on top of your house. I am not kidding, it sounded like the trumpets of Heaven (or more like the trombones of hell) blaring down on you. It wasn’t constant. It came and went, but when it came it lasted for about 20 seconds and the whole house shook. A steel rebar, reinforced concrete home with a solid concrete slab roof. Things were flying outside the house and hitting the sides of it with force. Our home sits at a slightly higher elevation than the surroundings, so we had a 360-degree view of what was going on. Our windows are glass and steel louvered storm/security windows, which held quite well mostly because they weren’t hit by any flying debris. In that we were lucky. The only thing was that the windows are over 20 years old, so the seals were not perfect, and at the peak of the storm it was as if the hole house was submerged in water and gallons of it poured through the gaps. And that was our only inside damage, just wet walls and a little flooding. Outside it was terribly awesome. There was so much rain flying sideways that if it were possible to stand outside, you would’ve probably had difficulty breathing.

We had obviously lost cable TV and internet access when we lost power the night before, and by 7:30 in the morning or so the cell phone signals started to fail. At this point I posted a question on the location of the eye to Freeper NautiNurse on the Free Republic live hurricane thread. As soon as she posted the satellite image showing the eye just south of us, we lost the cell phone signal. This almost total loss of communications would prove fatal to dozens of people in the days to come. I say “almost total loss of communications” because after the peak of the storm, only one AM radio station was left on the air. No TV, no internet, no two-way radios, no satellite phones. Nothing but the one AM radio station and the land lines of a few homes that still had the analog phone service. And then, the one AM radio station that survived couldn’t give much useful information because they didn’t have anywhere to get it from. So, they just babbled throughout the peak of the storm. This was critical because some things happened that hadn’t happened before and there was no way to warn anyone or to alert rescuers to what was happening.

I talked about flood zones and 100-year flood maps and what not. We might as well have tossed those away. Areas on the island that had never experienced flooding, flooded. Severely and immediately. There was so much rain coming down that entire mountain roads were washed away, isolating dozens of barrios (villages). Most of the immediate deaths due to the storm happened at this time. People simply drowned in their homes. Unlike in the states, here you can’t climb into the attic and hack your way unto the roof. Again, most of our homes are made of reinforced concrete.

They say that Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico in the morning of September 20 and exited out of the northwest by late afternoon. As I have discussed, that is misleading. We started to get hit on the evening of the 19th, and couldn’t leave our homes until the 21st. We lost power on the 19th and didn’t get it back until October 30. 40 days without power and we were of the fortunate few. Six months on, there are still tens of thousands of people here without electricity.

We’ve been criticized by “hardcore” preppers and survivalists for whining about being without power for so long or for any length of time. They say that temperatures in the 80s are mild and perfectly adaptable to. Well, if you are a hardcore trooper maybe, but to the ordinary citizen, especially the old, the newborn, the bedridden, the infirm, the handicapped, it is hell. 80s in the Midwest, for example, is not the same as 80s in the Tropics. It’s the humidity that kills you, to use a cliché. The heat index (opposite of wind chill factor) is more like the 90s. Food spoils faster, bugs go out of control. Walls, bed sheets and clothing become damp and moldy. And to aggravate this you have hundreds of gasoline and diesel generators being fired up at the same time to add fumes and noise to the misery. Out in the boonies a generator might be okay, but in a densely packed urban environment, no. And then finding and keeping food refrigerated was a challenge. Tough guys might be willing to eat canned food for six months straight, but most people aren’t ready for that. Anyway, whine, whine, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I went 40 days without electricity. Again, thousands of people here are still struggling without it. You try it. But that was just at home. At work, businesses cannot operate without electricity, and too many shops were forced to close and thousands lost their jobs. In my case, I was again blessed. I was able to get to my business the day after the storm. It was a challenge driving through San Juan. A drive that usually takes me ten minutes took ninety. It looked like a nuclear bomb went off over the city. When I got to the office, from the looks outside and around our building, I gasped and wondered if we would be able to resume operations. The entire concrete façade of the building was torn off. Half the big oak trees in the parking lot were down. A wooden house and its contents had fallen on top of the company vehicles. The flood waters went well past the 100-year flood line at the end of our property, marking a new limit for us near the beaches. And then the manual crank for the storm shutter on our front door didn’t work. I climbed on the roof hoping the generator was still there (I had my doubts) and it was! I fired it up, lighted the place and was able to open the shutter with the electric switch. Then I went inside the building and PTL, the entire office was intact. Not a drop of water. This was the first of a series of little miracles that just kept us going. The next one was that the air conditioners worked. With that, I was able to turn the computer network on (no A/Cs, no computer, no work). As soon as the servers came online and I saw the little monitor icon indicating we had an outside network connection and I didn’t believe my eyes. I then hit the browser icon and on came the Drudge Report: “Blown back to the Dark Ages”, headline with a picture of a devastated island street. We had internet! I then fired up the telephone switchboard and we had a dial tone! I went on facebook to check in with family and friends and made the dumb mistake of posting “somebody from the mainland call me at 787-nnn-nnnn to see if we’re getting calls from the states”. That was dumb because people who I hadn’t seen since the second grade started calling and I had more pressing things to do, like starting to try and convince our customers worldwide that we were not “blown back to the dark ages”.

So, those were the storms and their immediate aftermath. I’ll now try to discuss briefly the long recovery that lay ahead (if it is possible to be brief about it but by now I’ve probably lost the interest of many with my “non-dramatic’ account), and perhaps here is where most of the practical lessons are to be found. So I’ll go by themes, of myths and realities.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT RESPONSE. To put it simply, the local government just collapsed. This was admitted to by the head of the State Emergency Management Agency. Not for three days. Not for three months. We practically still have no government. And this should be a lesson to ignorant socialists everywhere. When most needed, the government may not even be there. Yes, there were many local heroics by first responders, but our government wasn’t prepared to deal with an event of this magnitude. On a good day, the Government of Puerto Rico just sucks. In a disaster like this, it was like a headless chicken. Our government was broke to begin with, and they just didn’t have the resources to mount any kind of significant response. In my worldview during those first few days, it was neighbors and communities doing all the rescuing and stabilization work. I was pleasantly surprise by this, because we Puerto Ricans get a lot of bad press and are often accused of depending on government too much. But as it turned out, we quickly realized that we had to take care of ourselves. I hope this sentiment sticks and translates into smarter voters in the future.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESPONSE. In my opinion, it was TOO MUCH. Really, there’s so much the feds can do. They have the manpower and airlift capability of the military, but FEMA is pretty much useless. It is a reactive rather than a proactive bureaucracy. But even then, I am sure we got all the help they could muster. I live below the approach path to the San Juan International Airport. The heavy lift aircraft traffic coming into the island was incessant, day and night. So much so that they clogged what little ramp space we have in our humble airport, and had to reactivate temporarily the old Ramey Air Force Base and the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station to handle the traffic (well, at least the runways were reactivated or used for this purpose). Since then, we’ve had so much help, that the personnel is just in the way in many areas. As an example, we have not been able to restart the tourism industry, because FEMA and all the others were hoarding hotel rooms and rental cars, leaving tourists without much options.

But at any rate, the people here are not starving. In stateside media, they keep showing images of the immediate aftermath or that of the first couple of months. Yes, there are still a lot of people without homes and with significant challenges. Many businesses disappeared, leaving thousands unemployed. This situation will drag on for some time. But I can assure you that Puerto Rico is not “devastated” and the Trump Administration response, such as it can be, has been more than adequate.

WHTEFISH ENERGY. This was a fiasco. A fiasco because I don’t care about the circumstances of their contract, they were doing their job. Two guys mounted an unprecedented response, subcontracted the expert hands, and were quickly restoring power to the island (they got power to my home in 40 days, way ahead the rest of the island). But then politics intervened, and those self-satisfied politicians who caused the contract to be cancelled, just extended the misery of the Puerto Ricans by months, while the APPA could be mustered to continue the work. It was a real shame. Except that politicians have no shame. They just want to stick it to Trump, even if he didn’t have anything to do with Whitefish.

APPA. The American Public Power Association has just been great, amazing, a God send. We got thousands of crews from the states working here tirelessly, and they picked up where Whitefish left off, expertly. We don’t have the luxury of having contiguous states here in the middle of the ocean, and just getting all these guys and their equipment here has been a tremendous feat.

HOME RESPONSE. Let me talk to you a little about what we did at home to cope with all this. Our main lifeline was provided by a little 2600 watt Yamaha gasoline generator. This was one of those little miracles because I had it stored unused and without maintenance for over ten years. When we ran out of ice sources after the storm, my wife convinced me to give it a try. I didn’t believe it would work after all those years. Plus, there had been not much gasoline available for the first week after the storm so it wasn’t like I would be able to use it, anyway. But with no ice to keep food and medications refrigerated, the situation was starting to get desperate. Would you believe it started? Not only did it start after cleaning the carburetor and putting in new oil, but it ran for 40 days, 12 to 15 hours a day, without so much as a hiccup. Another miracle to keep us going! This was an immense relief. Thankfully right after the generator was revived the gasoline supply situation on the island was resolved and we didn’t have any issues with that. So, in our situation, a little Yamaha generator made all the difference. Now I have two of those, one to back up the other. This contrasts to those whole house big gas generators and I’ll tell you why.

These generators are designed for emergency situations, not for long term use. If you are going to use it for an extended period of time, like we were forced to, maintenance is paramount. Fresh oil is life. We saw far too many of those Costco Honeywell generators fail due to maintenance. People just ran them hard until they burned out. You just cannot expect these to run 24/7 for more than a week. In the office, we were very careful with our 22KW Generac. We ran it for no more than 10 hours a days and changed the oil every 100 hours. It serviced us well for 2 months straight and it is still going, ready for the next one (although I read that the useful life of it is around 2,000 hours, which we are approaching).

Diesel, gasoline or gas, which is better? In our case, the supply of gasoline and diesel became critical immediately after the storm. Only propane and natural gas were immediately and widely available. But propane burns a lot faster than diesel or gasoline. So you have to make a choice, or come up with a combination of sources. In my case, my plan is to buy a whole house gas generator which I intend to use only overnight, and then have my two little gasoline generators as back up, at least to run the fridges.

Now, I’ve gone on long enough. I am no expert, but I just wanted to share my experiences in the hope that someone might find this information useful, and to clarify what has been going on down here over the past six months, for those who care. But mostly, I just wanted to get all this out of my head and move on. It has been a real struggle because I am responsible not only for my family but also for a business that employs over 50 people. It hasn’t been easy, but with all the little miracles God placed for us along the way, we can now look back at a life-changing experience with great hope for the future. We are here, we are doing well, and after all, that’s just life in the Tropics.

I’ll be able to answer any questions or comments later tonight as right now I just have to post and run.

Great post, cll, Thank You!

Ten years ago I had a friend from Connecticut who was working in San Juan. He was in a high rise and had never been through a hurricane but he imagined it would be like a Nor’easter. He bought some beer and was going to watch it happen on the weather channel in his 17th floor apartment.
In the first hour, the power failed. No weather channel. No A/C and no cold beer. Then the building began to sway. Oh, no elevator either. Shortly, his balcony’s sliding glass door blew away...

People think we preppers are weirdos. Until you have cold beer!

“We’ve been criticized by “hardcore” preppers and survivalists for whining about being without power for so long or for any length of time. They say that temperatures in the 80s are mild and perfectly adaptable to. Well, if you are a hardcore trooper maybe, but to the ordinary citizen, especially the old, the newborn, the bedridden, the infirm, the handicapped, it is hell. 80s in the Midwest, for example, is not the same as 80s in the Tropics. It’s the humidity that kills you, to use a cliché. The heat index (opposite of wind chill factor) is more like the 90s. Food spoils faster, bugs go out of control. Walls, bed sheets and clothing become damp and moldy. And to aggravate this you have hundreds of gasoline and diesel generators being fired up at the same time to add fumes and noise to the misery.”

I don’t worry so much about food or water for the short term (say, 6 months), but the WEATHER will impact our daily lives more than anything. Winter will make it hard to work outside and getting wood without a chain saw and log splitter - who knows if we can even do that, being in our 50’s and all - and not having the equipment. Summer, like this article says, would actually be worse. I might be able to grow stuff in the garden, but without refrigeration, it wouldn’t last long.

So much prepping to do, so little time. (or not, who knows?)

“Diesel, gasoline or gas, which is better? In our case, the supply of gasoline and diesel became critical immediately after the storm. Only propane and natural gas were immediately and widely available. But propane burns a lot faster than diesel or gasoline. So you have to make a choice, or come up with a combination of sources. In my case, my plan is to buy a whole house gas generator which I intend to use only overnight, and then have my two little gasoline generators as back up, at least to run the fridges.”

Propane burns faster? Do you mean it doesn’t produce enough energy or does it too quickly? I had no idea. We have a propane-powered whole house generator, and a 500 gal tank. But I don’t want to get complacent and think that’s all we need.

Diesel does store a long time, doesn’t it? We have some of that, for the truck and tractor and mule (a little 4WD thingy). Those vehicles will be a lot more useful than the Prius and mini-Cooper, LOL!

“I test run my generators a couple times a year. “

We try to once a month. Don’t usually make it though. I have a whole list of things to check on the first of the month - and the list keeps getting longer.

Ours used to auto-start when the electricity kicked off. That feature doesn’t work any more, and we can’t find anyone to work on it. At least the rest is ok - for now.

Great job all around.

We have used a little pto generator coupled to our little JD / Yanmar 20 hp diesel tractor that fairly sips fuel at about two quarts an hour at light load and runs for hours. Since it mows every week in the season it is always in operating condition. The generator is 10 to 12 kw and handles enough load. We shut down at night. The longest run was abt 2 weeks during Ike.

We have a whole house switch and disconnect at the main with the generator and tractor feed into a panel in the barn.

I would love a listeroid but did not get one before epa
banned them.

Having lived on the Gulf Coast all my life, we always started stocking food in January (plus candles / batteries, and when they became available battery operated fans), that way we didn’t have to “bust the budget”. We checked the dates on food we’d previously bought, what was good stayed - bad, well you get the idea.

Water the same way, looked for weekly sales, bought at least one pack also bought a water Bob.

Have a generator that needs repair, but seriously looking into a Generac as I’m getting to darn old to keep it filled up (5 gallons runs about 10 to 12 hours, depending on the load)

Gasoline, during Hurricane Season do NOT let the tank get below half, and when the local news starts “looking at something” fill up the gas cans for the generator, which if we don’t need it, goes into the Lawn Tractor.

Preparing for a storm, especially on the Gulf Coast is a way of life, or it should be. Family recently moved down from North Carolina, and pushing them to “prepare” but you know how the younglings are, they had snow, days without power so they know it all.

Thanks for the post. Happy you are getting back to normal.

Maybe you can confirm something I heard. I am working on a charitable medical program and study in the Dominican Republic. Many from Puerto Rico have relocated there.

According to the Doctors, PR tossed a lot of roadblocks into the importation of backup batteries. Many homes for instance had solar panels, inverters and such, but no batteries. If you wanted a backup system you could charge without killing the generators, there were no batteries.

Is that true? Can you elaborate on that?

Thank you for an excellent post on prep, the experience, and aftermath. My son and family who live in Guaynaba were without water and electricity for a number of weeks. It took almost a week for my other son and me to make contact (living in mid Atlantic area). My son was managing a large condo building with absentee owners and his wife worked in a large government building so they were able to do laundry almost immediately. The most unpleasant thing he reported was having to empty all the condo refrigerators after a week or two rotting, and no bicarb anywhere to deodorize. They live in a 3 story concrete building on the ground floor. There was rain blown under the door but other than a wet floor no significant problems inside. The trouble with housing is that especially outside of cities and towns, so much housing was wood and tin roofs. See what I found when Googling: Images, Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria.

https://www.google.com/search?q=images+puerto+rico+hurricane+maria&num=50&newwindow=1&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidnP_VwITaAhUjUt8KHYOOB0kQsAQIJw&biw=1600&bih=794

For many years I have tried to have at least a 2 week supply of non perishable food. When I was caring for my late husband as he slowly died of Alzheimers, I built up more like a 3 month supply as I did not know how long he would be bedridden and me with only rare help so I could go shopping. Traveling in Central America 50 years ago, I learned that you could put a drop of iodine in a glass of clear water, let it sit for 30 minutes, and would not get the trots from contaminated restaurant water. Ever since, I have always kept a bottle of iodine at home. You can also use original Clorox, not the new fancy variations. “2 drops of Regular Clorox Bleach per quart of water, 8 drops of Regular Clorox Bleach per gallon of water, 1/2 teaspoon Regular Clorox Bleach per five gallons of water. If water is cloudy, double the recommended dosages of Clorox Bleach.”, also from Google. In addition if the water is dirty, filter through clean cloth before adding iodine or Clorox. Years ago as I cowered at home in a big riot torn city after MLK’s assassination, I filled my bathtub with water in case there was a fire. Other areas were burning. If the water had gone out it would have been good for toilet flushing, cooking, and water purifying for drinking.

I will send this post to my son in PR and see if he has new information to tell me which I will post here.

“According to the Doctors, PR tossed a lot of roadblocks into the importation of backup batteries. Many homes for instance had solar panels, inverters and such, but no batteries. If you wanted a backup system you could charge without killing the generators, there were no batteries”.

I don’t think it went down like that as far as the importation of backup batteries. There’s no such prohibition (interstate commerce clause). The problem was that several companies who hawked solar systems where only interested in selling electricity back to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, and used all these homes as their generators. They didn’t care about or installed any backup or storage systems. It was a scam, if you ask me.

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