After the Crisis - Puerto Rico

One of the many things Leftists and those allied with them fulminate about is the Federal Government's response to the crisis after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.

Did the Federal Government delay aid? Were they trying to 'kill people', as a few more hysterical people have suggested?

Well, no.

The problems of Puerto Rico long precede Hurricane Maria. The island has been over budget, corrupt, and willing to let its people live in appalling conditions for many decades. The hurricane did not cause the problems. The Federal government refused to let politicians use this tragedy as an excuse for open-handed tsunamis of cash, delivered to the more-than eager political class - i.e., greedy crooks.

First, Trump has been criticized for bringing attention to the government's use of some of the money it received for bonuses for government workers. They DID do this, claiming that the law compelled them to.

B$. They had a choice - to use that money for its intended purpose, which was to restore basic services to the island. Instead, they chose to use it to reward their cronies in government. Even Snopes, for all its twisting around, can't evade the basic truth.

This report of the crisis has a more balanced analysis of the situation.

• First, a message from Ground Zero - "Local officials praised the Trump administration’s response..."
• "The aid effort quickened with the opening of the island’s main port in the capital, San Juan, allowing 11 ships to bring in 1.6 million gallons of water, 23,000 cots, dozens of generators and food. Dozens more shipments are expected in upcoming days."
• "The federal aid effort is racing to stem a growing crisis in towns left without water, fuel, electricity or phone service. Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said they would take satellite phones to all of Puerto Rico’s towns and cities, more than half of which were cut off." This was augmented by ham radio operators, who brought communication to many of the more remote parts of the country.
• "The island’s infrastructure was in sorry shape long before Maria struck. A $73bn debt crisis has left agencies like the state power company broke. As a result the power company abandoned most basic maintenance in recent years, leaving the island subject to regular blackouts." So, being without power is something the people learned to live without, BEFORE the hurricane.
• "A federal control board overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances authorized up to $1bn in local funds to be used for hurricane response, but Governor Rossello said he would ask for more." Greedy b@$t@rd.
• I guess that his experience in private industry was a plus, as "Rossello and other officials praised the federal government for planning its response before the storm hit"

Official death count - 55 souls. Ignore those 'estimates" of dead people - they are based on ridiculously-skewed 'math' models. The actual number is bad enough.

Even NBC had to admit that the Federal government had responded admirably, even as they added to the calls for more aid.

But, what about those reports that business interests kept Trump from helping the island?

Bunk.

The Jones Act mandates that US ships must be used to carry all merchandise to the island. Is this bad?

Proponents of the Jones Act say that without it, the country would be forced to rely on cheaper international ships operated by foreign workers and put American vessels in a more crowded and less efficient shipping environment.

Temporarily waiving the Jones Act for Puerto Rico "would take American first responders out of the loop and replace them with Filipino or Russian or Chinese crews," Michael Roberts, senior vice president and general counsel at Crowley Maritime Corporation, told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday. "Doing that at a time when many U.S. mariners in this region have had their homes damaged, their lives uprooted and now they need to work, to take that away is not something you want to do."

Keep in mind that the Jones Act is helping provide much needed money to families of the dock and ship workers. Work - not charity.

The bottlenecks for private charity efforts continue.

And, some of that is solely due to people on the island.

Part of the reason for the distribution backlog is that only 20% of truck drivers have reported back to work since Hurricane Maria swept through, according to a representative for Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.

As always, private efforts often have the most positive impact.

One of the guiding concepts of disaster relief in recent years is that neighbors are the real first responders. In a large event like a hurricane, there are never enough EMTs, police, firefighters, and medical personnel in a place, and it’s impossible to bring them in immediately. The essential role played by the Cajun Navy and other good samaritans in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey demonstrated both the importance of ordinary citizens and the ways in which governmental response is delayed and limited even when running as designed.

 It took ARMED FORCES to get equipment and materials that had been hoarded released.

The power problems pre-dated the hurricane.

Mismanagement is not a new phenomenon for PREPA, which for decades has been Puerto Rico’s sole power provider. For most of that time, it had been self-regulated, with a board comprised largely of political appointees with little to no background in the electricity sector. The lack of oversight created conditions for corruption and disinvestment, with its generation and transmission capacity falling into severe disrepair over many years.

 Read the rest at the above link. It will give some perspective on the infrastructure, and the changes to the administration of it that will be necessary for the island to recover. Money alone will not help, and may well hinder recovery.

The nature of the energy sources is also an on-going problem.

More than half of Caribbean nations rely almost exclusively (pdf) on fossil fuels, according to the International Monetary Fund. 

If there is any part of the planet that can make the case for solar, it's the Caribbean. Dependence on fossil fuels is stupid, as every bit of energy has to be imported, using scarce cash to purchase something that could be produced entirely on-island.

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