Sometimes we engineer our own misfortune.
Posted on 10/04/2017 11:16:41 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
In the rural village of Salinas in southern Puerto Rico, frayed electric lines hanging from a utility pole blew in the breeze last week near the town square.
But the damage didn’t come from Hurricane Maria.
“Those wires were actually there before,” said Fermin Seda, 68, a Salinas resident who said he has grown accustomed to downed lines and power outages.
Two weeks after the storm plunged the island into a blackout, less than 10 percent of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million people have seen power restored - and many will wait months.
Restoring the grid after the worst storm to hit here in nine decades would be a monumental task even for a well-run utility. It will be much harder for the chronically underfunded Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which went bankrupt in July amid mounting maintenance problems, years-long battles with creditors, a shrinking workforce and frequent management turnover.
Interviews with more than two dozen officials and consultants who work for or with the U.S. territory’s government, PREPA or its creditors reveal a utility that was unprepared for a major storm despite the ever-present risk to this Caribbean island. When Maria hit, PREPA was trying to simultaneously finance an operational overhaul and dig out from about $8 billion in debt.
Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello, in an interview with Reuters on Saturday, said none of the utility’s storm response plans could account for years of poor maintenance of the dilapidated electric network.
”The emergency plan was as follows: There is no way to fix the nature of the grid,” Rossello said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Puerto Rico needs to be placed under financial oversight ASAP.
Blame FDR for the abysmal state of PR. He appointed some commie/socialist governor that really screwed up the territory.
Add in unpaid bills and
unmetered services
and you have a bit of a problem
Puerto Rico was a disaster before the hurricane, at the hands of socialists and Democrat advised politicians. Now, the guilty parties want to intimidate President Trump, aided by the media and willing US politicians, to build them a new Territory or be labeled a “racist”. I’ve seen this play before.
Blame the minimum wage.
https://economics21.org/html/federal-minimum-wage-killing-puerto-ricos-economy-1387.html
$8 Billion debt, unable to collect on power bills, unable to pay workers to stay, not keeping up on maintenance, confused regulatory and management structure.
Sounds like a TYPICAL socialist-progressive corrupt government skimming operation.
No doubt mainland America will be buying them a shiny, expensive new grid, which local socialists and their many backers will slowly run into the ground again.
I've flown into PR several times over the years and one thing I always notice, regardless of when a hurricane last impacted the island, is that blue tarps always seem to cover many of the houses. I presume that many of the residents either don't care, can't afford the repair, or can't find materials to make a repair. If they're dependent upon the government, there's a good chance that the government gave them a blue tarp and said, "here, make due."
Let’s send Bob Mueller and his team in first. Keep ‘em busy on site like. Suss out the socialist scum. Not sure whether we should give him a “Report back by” date.
Oh my lord, Reuters actually reported the truth.
Just like the United States.
I have to give you that one!
“We voted thieves into office because they said they would steal for us. It turns out those thieves were liars, too. Can you give me a billion dollars?”
One cannot generate and sell power at a loss and maintain the infrastructure.
Oh. I forgot the Production Tax Credits for Wind and Solar.
Never mind.
Problem is the folks that don’t want to work will come here to live off the government. Florida, brace yourself!
and dig out from about $8 billion in debt.
In one of the first articles I read about the Utility company, it said they were selling Bonds to Wall Street to fund day to day operations.
If you have to BORROW money every day just to stay open, eventually you will Close.
They were Bankrupt already and the Island probably would have been w1thout power soon enough anyway.
unmetered services
Here in California, Water and Electricity were FREE, not metered.
I knew someone in Bel Air that had added on to a real old house that was Hooked up Direct to Pole, No Meter, No Fuses,Breakers,.. Only 2 rooms of the house were that way, they were built in 1920
LOL
that is what was promised when nuclear power was new.
then regulations and security got in the way.
I thought PR was run by socialist democRATS who are achieving their goals of turning the entire island into Detroit or some other liberal hellhole.
In that regard, why is the entire island not on solar and wind power? I thought that's what these climate change libs were for. With them in charge, what's the hold up? /sarc/
Talking heads in the MSM claim Trump has failed as president (this is his Katrina they claim) because two weeks after the storm struck, the island is not back to progressive paradise like it was before Maria hit. Really?
Puerto Rico is $80 billion to $120 billion dollars in debt before the storm. They were busted before they were busted. Their infrastructure was never up to par and the government was falling behind on maintenance and repair of everything on the island.
This is why Trump keeps saying we're going to have to start over from scratch to rebuild. The place has been falling apart (well, barely hanging on, maybe) for years. PR's mistake was to kick out the navy bombing range. It infused $300 million into the local economy which is now gone. Nothing replaced it. Unintended consequences of bad decisions.
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