Nothing, nothing. Aid lags in hurricane-torn Puerto Rico

[TomCADem]

Source: Washington Post

MONTEBELLO, Puerto Rico — Relatives helped Maribel Valentin Espino find shelter when Hurricane Maria roared through her community in northern Puerto Rico. Neighbors formed volunteer brigades to cut fallen trees and clear twisty mountain roads after the storm had passed. Now, friends and a local cattle ranch provide the water they need to survive in the tropical heat.

Valentin and her husband say they have not seen anyone from the Puerto Rican government, much less the Federal Emergency Management Agency, since the storm tore up the island Sept. 20, killing at least 16 people and leaving nearly all 3.4 million people in Puerto Rico without power and most without water.

“People say FEMA is going to help us,” Valentin said Tuesday as she showed Associated Press journalists around the sodden wreckage of her home. “We’re waiting.”

Many others are also waiting for help from anyone from the federal or Puerto Rican government. But the scope of the devastation is so broad, and the relief effort so concentrated in San Juan, that many people from outside the capital say they have received little to no help.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/scope-of-puerto-rico-damage-so-wide-that-us-aid-hard-to-see/2017/09/27/08dedaf2-a35f-11e7-b573-8ec86cdfe1ed_story.html?utm_term=.f46eed2134d7

[left-of-center2012]

1. Last night, on CBS news ...

There was a clip of Trump saying:

"People are saying we're doing an amazing job in Puerto Rico"

Who?

[Achilleaze]

4. He* told that lie 6 times yesterday, smirking all the while

There's a clip/montage of it somewhere out there...CBS broadcast three of the lies sequentially.

* republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief

[gilbert sullivan]

6. The Governer did, but

he probably doesn't know anything.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. You're right.... He doesn't know anything. nt

[gilbert sullivan]

9. Possibly. He's a Democrat.

Or the PR equivalent. Are you claiming he's an idiot? That's interesting.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

10. The PNP (the same one his father belong to) is the closest thing we have to the Repugs. No

matter who they kiss up to.

[Moostache]

2. My god...this is astounding. 3 MILLION people, American citizens, are left alone?

The fucking flag stands for THEM as well as for rich cock-sucking country club fuckers!

The goddamn flag is MEANINGLESS if it is not used to rally the country to those in need, NOT to rally racists with fucking dog whistles about keeping those damn uppity negro athletes in their place and making sure they know their success is something the white powers that be ALLOW them to have.

I have become a dangerously unhinged person everytime I see that son of a bitch Trump speak...I am literally hoping for a meteor to fall from the sky and vaporize him.

Save Puerto Rico. Do it now!!!!

[Maxheader]

3. Really a shame.

Our navy should be in there...air force can land just about anywhere...
Cheetos needs to lead..

[csziggy]

5. Navy ships should have been prepped and ready to go

Even if they had to delay actual deployment to wait until the storms passed.

Irma affected any ship travel in the Gulf, Carribean and along the southeast Atlantic coast for a week after traveling through the Windward Islands. Jose, while staying offshore, still affected Atlantic ports. Even leaving Puerto Rico and the other islands, the Maria continues to affect south east ports.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT15/refresh/AL152017_wind_history+png/091533_wind_history.png

The USNS Comfort, a massive hospital ship, is being sent to Puerto Rico now, but the week delay in getting the ship out is probably because her route to the island would have been right through Maria - the ship is stationed at Norfolk Virginia.

BUT if Trump had ordered her deployment sooner, she could have been prepped and be underway NOW.

Navy Hospital Ship USNS Comfort Prepping for Puerto Rico Rescue Mission
Ship, which has an ER and 12 operating rooms, should be underway by Friday after concerns about a slow response to the humanitarian crisis following Hurricane Maria.

By Steve Sternberg, Senior Writer |Sept. 27, 2017, at 9:18 a.m.

The Trump Administration's decision to send the Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to Puerto Rico seven days after Hurricane Maria struck, stands in sharp contrast to the speed with which which it was detached to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

The mammoth ship was docked Tuesday in its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, with a minimal crew, requiring up to five days to stock up and get underway. When reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, the commanding officer of the ship's hospital, Capt. Kevin D. Buckley, said, "The Comfort is ready to go, if the call comes."

Now that the orders have arrived, the goal is to stock the ship with personnel, food, water and medical supplies within 96 hours and get underway Friday. "There's a whole slew of equipment that has to be brought on board to accommodate the mission, primarily medical supplies," says the ship's spokesman, Bill Mesta, of the Military Sealift Command, the civilian maritime agency that runs the ship, while the Navy commands its hospital facility.

Without running water on the island, he said, "cholera is an issue."

The Comfort's orders came after days of increasing pressure on the Trump Administration to help the more than 3.4 million American citizens in the United States Commonwealth, who are desperate for food, clean water and shelter. On Monday, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló called on Congress to send supplies and relief workers, warning that the U.S. territory faced an impending "humanitarian crisis."
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-09-27/navy-hospital-ship-usns-comfort-prepping-for-puerto-rico-rescue-mission

[nitpicker]

8. It's probably the funding

To do anything major extra, Navy needed authorization to set up lines of accounting.

That authorization came from FEMA on Tuesday.

I'm sure that Navy was busy identifying personnel to staff the Comfort (and substituting if personnel were now not able to deploy), checking to see what blood supplies/sterile instruments could be diverted from military treatment facilities (not just Navy's), etc. But to spend $$ on extra military personnel travel, procurement/movement of extra fresh supplies, etc., they needed authorization. Now they have it.