Posted on 12/26/2017 5:24:20 AM PST by cll
MOROVIS, Puerto Rico – Three days before Christmas, Doris Martinez and daughter Miriam Narvaez joined their neighbors in a line outside city hall in Morovis, a town of 30,000 people still living without electricity in the mountains of central Puerto Rico a month after Hurricane Maria battered the U.S. island.
They waited two hours under the searing sun for their twice-a-week handout — 24 bottles of water and a cardboard box filled with basic foods such as tortillas, canned vegetables and cereal.
Martinez, a 73-year-old cancer survivor, balanced the water atop the food and picked her way up a steep hill to the home where she lives alone, washing and wringing out her clothes by hand and locking herself in at night, afraid of robbers. Her 53-year-old daughter loaded her food and water into her car and drove off to the public housing complex where she would then have to wait with dozens of other neighbors in another line to cook on one of six gas burners in the administrator's office.
"Things are not good," Narvaez said as she headed toward home.
This is life in Puerto Rico more than three months after Maria destroyed the island's electrical grid. Gov. Ricardo Rossello promised in mid-October to restore 95 percent of electricity delivery by Dec. 15, but normality remains far off. Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority says its system is generating at 70 percent of normal but it has no way of knowing how widely electricity is being distributed because the system that measures that isn't working.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
There’s a big difference between mainland, big and democratic east coast cities “Puerto Ricans” and actual island Puerto Ricans. Imagine an F2 tornado the width of your state sawing through the entire length of it for 16 hours. That’s what we went through. Both the local and federal governments here collapsed. That’s why we gave up on them and just carried on helping ourselves. Only the U.S. military was capable and able to project power and logistics into the disaster in a timely basis. That’s why I make the distinction.
Maybe if they had paid the contractor that was restoring the grid they wouldn’t have pulled out, jus’ sayin’.
You refer to micro grids. Yes, that’s the “new” thing they are going to be working on here. New for us.
So what are the politicians of Peurto Rico doing about it?
I’ll tell you. They’re pulling a Katrina by sitting on their hands and letting their people suffer in order to make Trump and Republicans look bad. It’s extremely SPITEFUL and INHUMANE. And I am not just angry about how Peurto Rican suffering is being used as a political chess piece against Trump’s agenda but how Peurto Ricans are being treated.
I agree with you. It’s inhumane.
We got about 7 inches Christmas eve but talked to a friend in northern Michigan (Boyne City) yesterday afternoon and he said he got about 18 inches and it was still snowing......
I understand the damage. You should be self reliant until help arrives.
I might be taking it wrong, but you sound angry and ungrateful. Government is inefficient, you should have already known that.
They will be installing a lot of solar.
Grr. I hate to take that approach, but their government at all levels, even more than our own, seems inhabited by open, uninhibited, and unapologetic grifters.
Since they removed any Navy rights to bases, I have been in favor of cutting them loose and removing all citizenship rights as well as any purse strings.
The only reason I would keep it as a Commonwealth is to keep tabs on the virulent leftists who infest government at all levels so that they don’t import a threat to this country via additional support of terrorists and their causes, or other destabilizing elements.
I am angry but don’t need to be grateful to no government. I took care of my family, neighbors and my two businesses by myself.
While we’re at it, you and everyone else should take note: When they say that you should be self reliant until help arrives - usually for three days, the government suggests - that’s BS. You need to be self-sufficient (have enough food, water, fuel and shelter) for AT LEAST THREE WEEKS after a major disaster as the one we just had. That was my experience.
Some of our fly-over country ice-storms leave our rural people without electricity, phone, cable, water and with blocked roads for up to 6 weeks during deadly cold weather.
This much time after the hurricane and you still can’t get a generator for your house? Roads must be clear by now, and regular commerce should have been reintroduced to at least some ports...no???
I’m prepared for months, no need to take note.
Oh yes indeed. Heaven forbid that bankrupt and defaulted P. R. Even try to cut back on government expenditures. The people their snivel and whine for government relief but won’t do much of anything for themselves. That stupid puta mayor Cruz along with pendejos truck drivers union are perfect examples. P.R. Has corruption and bad attitude and that’s about all.
When a real disaster strikes you can't count on the government to do a thing. And all the fancy disaster planning, FEMA, etc. rarely gets the job done when it is needed. The US military, Coast Guard, and organized civilians get a lot more done.
Too many people are trained by the government to be dependent on it, since that empowers the government. But when a disaster strikes those people are left to suffer.
I’ve always found the people of Puerto Rico to be good industrious folk. My prayers for those who are suffering privations.
Hopefully those who have lived through this experience once, will never be caught dependent again.
That sounds like a lot of money in the wrong hands for sake of a local idiosyncrasy. Banco Unpopular!
And just keep putting those wires on poles! They MUST work faster so that they will all be back up so the next hurricane can knock them down AGAIN!
REAL aid would be to send them excavators.
https://udevices.wordpress.com/category/why-go-underground/
Wouldn't it be better to keep it simple and keep it as self-sufficient as possible, especially in isolated, poorly governed places such as Puerto Rico?
Vote the Democrat ticket!
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