By the numbers: Hurricane Maria damage, recovery in Puerto Rico

[DonViejo]

Source: USA Today




Oren Dorell, USA TODAY Published 11:16 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2017 | Updated 6:45 a.m. ET Oct. 1, 2017

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As of Saturday morning, here's what we know about hurricane recovery in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, which has a population of 3.4 million.

• Death toll: 16

• Gasoline stations open: 714 of 1,100

• Amount of fuel on the island: 600,000 barrels of diesel and 722,000 barrels of gasoline. Converted to gallons, that's 25.2 million gallons of diesel, 30.3 million gallons of gas but getting the fuel to where it's needed most is a problem because of debris and washed-out roads. Electricity to operate gas pumps also is an issue.

• Electric customers with power: 5%

• Supermarkets open: 224 of 456

• Pharmacies open: 337

• Municipalities visited and provided with emergency supplies: 78 (all of them)

• Staging areas across the island for food, water and other supplies: 11

• Shelters open: 150

• Hospitals open: 51 of 69

• Hospitals connected to the electric grid: 9

Source: Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, status.pr. Follow Oren Dorell on Twitter: @OrenDorell

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Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-by-the-numbers/720731001/#

[onecaliberal]

1. The Problem is not supplies, it's getting them where they need to be.

[Marthe48]

3. An idea on tanker trucks

Would it be possible to equip tanker trucks with nozzles and pump registers for payment, so you could just park a tanker and let people fuel up from where it can be parked? The truck would have power to run the nozzles and the registers could have batteries.

[Gore1FL]

4. If the trucks can't get anywhere, I suspect it would be hard to get to the trucks, too. nt

[Marthe48]

7. I was thinking that it would help until power is back

If the trucks had pumps, you'd have a way to dispense faster, instead of waiting for the power to come back on. You couldn't get everywhere, but you could get more distribution points set up faster.

The pumps would have to have pressure reducers, so the gas didn't fly everywhere, lots of no smoking signs, maybe tandem drivers for security.

[onecaliberal]

5. Very good idea.

[Jim__]

2. The Number Of Puerto Ricans Without Water Grew To More Than Half: DoD

From HuffPost:

Fifty-five percent of the island’s residents were reported as not having access to drinking water as of Saturday, up from 44% reported on Wednesday, according to figures from the U.S. Defense Department. Meanwhile, 95 percent of people were without electrical power as of Saturday, the DOD reported.

[Igel]

8. That'll change when some of the treatment facilities come back on line.

But that'll be slow. They may need repairs, may need to get spare parts and chemicals from the mainland, need electricity and then a good cleaning. Then there's flushing the system because you know that much of the water distribution system it was contaminated with flood waters. And once you start flushing the system is when you find all the water main breaks that need have water mains shut off so you can repair the pipes--meaning you need to get replacement pipe from somewhere and the equipment, already in demand doing other things, to dig. But before all that, you need to get the workers there.

A week after Harvey hit Beaumont, it still hadn't restored water everywhere and the boil advisory was still in place, and they started work on restoring water pretty much a day or two after the hurricane went over. Easy access to expertise, supplies, parts, and power, with flat terrain (so no need to pump the water uphill 800 feet).


It doesn't matter if you have a stack of pallets of bottled water sitting next to your chair, you're still officially without access to drinking water unless it comes out of the tap.

Then again, maybe PR will get upgrades to their drinking water system as a result. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-puerto-rico-worst.html

And given the rainfall yesterday and what's expected for the next few days, drinking water isn't really a pressing issue.

[lark]

6. One part is over-stated

51 hospitals open, 12 have electric power, rest have diesel per general on MSNBC so depend on being resupplied. He also said that one town of 46,000 just got food and water for the first time today, so again, over optimistic saying municipalities, and obviously excluding critical rural areas.

Schilling reported 8 dead cops, no one else had that.

150 shelters sounds good, but considering the almost 100% devastation and 3.5 million population, it is obviously just denting the surface.

Notice one critically important missing item - roads cleared.

[JackRiddler]

9. Death toll, hmmm...

Hasn't changed in days. Not very likely.

[Hortensis]

11. No, it's not. But they're looking at probably dozens or hundreds at most,

not tends or hundreds of thousands.

[FakeNoose]

10. Stores are open but nobody has cash to buy stuff

Apparently the ATM machines are down (or without power) and the stores won't take credit cards.
So anyone who doesn't have the cash already is SOL.

That's a big problem and there are hungry & desperate people in Puerto Rico right now.

[Hortensis]

12. Reportedly 10,000 people are still in shelters, so people can interpret that

number according to their natures.

I'm on the amazed and happy side because that's 10 THOUSAND out of 3.4 MILLION, on an island that sustained its worst hurricane hit in history by far, beyond all imagining. On the dark side, many who are currently living in their homes without running water and electricity, because they have to, will not be able to continue to do so for months. If they're not restored before too long, many, for instance people with babies and small children, will have to leave.

That 16 officially declared dead, uhuh. It'll be more of course. Still, amazed. Those lazy PRans did some things very right.

Over half of all the hospitals are "partially" open, but someone who should know said for most that "partially" means most services restored, but not all.

[rockfordfile]

13. Terrible