Re: Millions are being poured into PR and thousands of personnel...
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 9/28/2017, 7:34 pm
Suspension of the Jones Act occurred easily for Texas and Florida, but not Puerto Rico until now. It should have been immediate for at least a few weeks, and continue to be renewed as this crisis continues, Congress can argue about doing it permanently later.

Today the acting Homeland Security Secretary said:

"I am very satisfied. I know it's a hard storm to recover from but the amount of progress that's been made, and I really would appreciate any support that we get. I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane."

The statement speaks for itself.

This is not about the state of politics in the past few years. This is about an incompetent response by the civilian side of the U.S. government. The civilian side of the government congratulating themselves on a job well done is going to cost people their lives. I don't care who is in charge, this has been a mess regardless of the political party and we can't not say anything just because it involves elected officials.

The military coming in after Katrina was when things turned around. Here though, much more of the military's help was needed and it wasn't the commanders' faults for not deploying more resources. That is very important to note.

It is in no way an insult to the military. There should have been many times more people on standby. Not hundreds to thousands, but tens of thousands. Many more ships, with a lot more personnel and a lot more resources. Civilians in government should have positioned more military where they needed to be. Even before the storm when I heard there were ships offshore, I figured it wasn't going to be enough. The island already had challenges and it was going to be far greater than anything we've ever seen before from a natural disaster in modern history in this country. Even some of the military want to do more, they're just waiting for orders.

Why are there no drivers for the trucks carrying items to stores? If you know where they live, go to their house and let them know they can come to work. Can't find them, have other drivers down there. Get them the fuel they need. Unless roads are blocked, they can start delivering to where they can. Somebody needs to start unpacking what I've heard to be over 10,000 containers.

More money will absolutely be spent per person than Harvey or Irma. They're an island. It makes everything more expensive, but it still needs to be spent.

The media is starting to get onto this story more now. Story after story is being told of how people are not getting the help they need. People who need medical attention are among the most at risk and they're not getting the help they need. (It's heartbreaking to hear these reports and you know it's even worse for areas that still have not have had any help at all.) Some of the medical personnel can't communicate. People who could restore power can't because they can't communicate with their companies.

More people are going to continue to die after this storm and some of those deaths would have been preventable had there had been a better response.

I do need to comment on this statement:

"We can hope it will help those that choose to live in the paths of hurricanes in PR will be safer in the future as a result"

Frankly, a lot of people don't have a choice but to live there. Moving to the mainland U.S. just isn't possible financially.
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humanitarian aid/evac for Puerto Rico & other islands - cypresstx, 9/25/2017, 6:25 am
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