by having emergency workers onhand, trained electricians on hand, food and water and medicines stored in safe facilities for immediate distribution afterwards- There’s lots that could be done to prepare- They did not prepare, and expected the US to come to their aid and fix everything after they failed to do so. They live in hurricane prone area- One would think they would be prepared for disasters such as this- Yet All they did was blame the US afterwards-
Hey, respectfully, “they” is “we”. I live in Puerto Rico and went through the storms, and worse, their aftermath.
I prepared. My business prepared. My neighbors prepared. We fared quite well in our area and supported each other, without waiting for the government. That was the case for most if not all the people I know.
The local government collapsed for the first couple of weeks, completely, and was overwhelmed the rest of the time and almost a year later, it still is.
The federal government response was abundant. In fact, on the other side of overwhelming since they sent thousands of helpers, who took over virtually every hotel room and rental car, stalling for months the restart of our very important tourism industry.
But if the federal government help was abundant in materiel and personnel, it lacked in coordination and structure, and there was a lot of wasted time.
That’s the true story from my first-person perspective.
I phoned my son just before Maria hit. He lives just south of San Juan. He said he had plenty of bottled water, hurricane panels on the windows, non perishable food, a creek just down a slope from his door, and plenty of old fashioned Clorox to purify water if they used up their bottled water. Also lots of candles and batteries. What he didn’t have and was quickly gone from stores was baking soda which he needed when he went to clients condos 2 weeks later to muck out their electricity lacking refrigerators. Ugggh.