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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.

I think you are making some very important points. Everyone should be prepared, like you were, to take care of themselves and have some ability to try to help the neighbors.

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.

Three weeks is a joke. Many FRiends have enough for more than three months without even trying. On day one, you knew food was going to be short on the island so by now y’all could be harvesting home gardens. A small milk crate sized 1 foot cube container will hold 32 15 oz of canned food. IOW, 32 cans take up one square foot of space. Everyone has space under their beds. At .50 per can for veggies, that’s $16 of insurance. Or $32 of insurance for cans of chili. Neither has to be heated. It might not be fun, but one crate of each would last a month for one person.

PR Hospitals and factories may need electricity but homes don’t. Gasoline can be sold out of trucks, electrical pumps are not a necessity. No one NEEDS tv or internet. Foil and cardboard will make a solar oven for cooking without electricity. PR doesn’t need a/c or heat with temps in the 80s during the day and falling to the 40s at night.

It was freezing here in TX this morning at 7 when I opened the backdoor for the furbabies and it’s been open ever since. Temp now at lunchtime is 48. In our truly
sweltering hot summers, I don’t turn on the a/c until it’s constantly in the 90s. We didn’t have a/c installed until ‘94 so it’s a convenience, not a necessity.

You may remember me from past postings, so don’t think I am slamming PR, but that applies to everyone.

I am called a hoarder because I keep at least a month of food and water for my family. And I live in the middle of a large city in the middle of the country and not an island.

There is no excuse why more people on PR didn’t have some supplies stored up. They had warnings for DAYS ahead of the storm.

Also, if the government wasn’t so utterly corrupt and bankrupt, power could have been restored faster. You have the utterly incompetent mayor of San Juan constantly attacking Trump for political points instead of working with him to get things done doesn’t help.

The federal government can only do so much without assistance from people on the ground that live there, and the Teamster drivers going on strike against their own people didn’t help.

Givemedats only take and don’t give back. I feel for a lot of the poor people on PR who are old and infirm, and having a hard time, but as the story shows, they are getting some assistance and not starving.

I used to live in rural Mississippi in the early 70’s. Every time, the power went out, it took at least a day to get fixed. We had a ice storm that took over a week to get power back. That is part of the trade off with living in the countryside. Same thing applies in PR.