I am of the opinion that the Administration is messing up the relief effort in Puerto Rico, after doing a credible job in Texas and Florida. But I believe in numbers.
Imagine ninety days from now, we have good numbers for most metrics. How can we measure the adequacy of the response? This is tough as each hurricane is unique. The number dead will surely be less than Katrina. The property damage will be more than Florida. (Besides, does property damage measure the response?) Days without electricity will be Very Bad, but that is in part the overaged infrastructure and the lack of aid from nearby states.
What could be used to prove the federal response in Puerto Rico was good or bad or whatever?
Restoration back to pre-hurricane levels compared to the equivalent numbers in other areas hit by hurricanes.
As an example, let’s say that thirty days after the hurricane ends, Texas has 99% of its power restored and Florida has 98%. If Puerto Rico only has 80% of its power restored, I’d say that it’s legitimate to ask why this discrepancy exists.
I disagree that here’s an easy metric you can use. Like it or not, the situations are completely different. PR is an island, with a super-dysfunctional local government (and the power company in particular) which had total power failure everywhere at once. Like it or not, this is realistically going to be a far tougher job, and in fact the federal government will be only a secondary support player in getting the power back up in either case.
Kindly don’t accuse me of shilling for Trump; this would be the case regardless of the Presidency.
The trouble with that metric is that places along with each’s infrastructure are scarcely comparable. An equal amount of storm – or other — damage to New York compared to Idaho would mean more people, yet richer, and more power/water etc. installations to repair.
New York would have priority and be able to make more fuss until everything was working; it and the federal relief would be able to spend more money.
And it would have more trained people to fix the state.
Three horrible storms in a very short period of time would overtax any government. The Virgin Islands were also hit. We sent help to Mexico. Mother Nature has thrown a lot at us.
In the case of Puerto Rico we should also look at the help tbe feds are getting from the locals and the cost of basically a new power grid. This situation is to complex to yield any easy answers and will be exploited by some for political gain.
This is Puerto Rico, an island we’ve been running for over a hundred years. If its current problems are due to its existing lack of a good infrastructure, whose fault is that?
Puerto Rico is a self-governing territory. Although it is not a state, it functionally acts like one for most purposes, including control over its pwn public institutions. Congress could legally revoke that and there are some disadvantages such as the Jones Act. Still, Puerto Rico is a separate Commonwealth.
Local governments are going to vary from place to place. Both in general competence and how much they have in resources.
The American system is supposed to work this way. States collect taxes from their own territory, and make decisions based on what the people of the state vote for. (or, when you see failures, what the people deserve. If the people are uneducated and stupid or fall for lies, they don’t deserve much it seems)
So Puerto Rico languishing in poverty and ruins after this disaster is part of the plan. For whatever reason, what they have been doing in Puerto Rico is not working. Natural disasters are not unpredictable, they were clearly not properly prepared for this. But because it’s a separate territory, it fails on it’s own and doesn’t bring the other 50 states down with it.
FEMA’s role is to provide some charity for those unprepared, essentially. This is one reason why it is not properly funded. So there’s going to be relief supplies and people brought in, and the mass deaths that would otherwise ‘naturally’ happen in Puerto Rico are going to be avoided. Some people will die and many will suffer, but it won’t be what it would be if they were left without help.
But the whole idea of “fairness”, that they should recover just as quick as a far wealthier state, that’s not part of the plan. That’s not really how America works.
Maybe it should be more fair, but it isn’t, and to ‘fix’ this, you’d have to rewrite the U.S. constitution to reorganize the government. Frankly, a single central government (no state or local, just federal) would likely be far more efficient and there are probably be ways it could be made fair. With computers and modern methods, there probably are ways it could all be done far better than it is. But it’ll never happen, the only way the USA can change is if it collapses as a country, falling from an outside invasion or something. Otherwise, the onerous requirements to edit the Constitution essentially prevent any real change.
Not accusing you; We used to be able to throw around Mother Nature & Acts of God as just ‘figures of speech’, but now we know better. We have to be more precise, lest we inadvertently leave an impression upon readers that we may not intend.
Staying with GQ and trying to not make this political…
The recovery in Puerto Rico will follow vastly different paths than in Houston from Harvey or Florida from Irma. The mere nature of the damage is very different with Harvey providing widespread flood damage to a very urban area as opposed to Maria causing wind and landslide damage resulting flash floods and severing rural communities from normal logistics channels. It’s not even an apples and oranges comparison, more like apples and religious freedom - two completely different concepts.
As logistics is a major issue for Puerto Rico, look to what extent the ports are capable of returning to pre-storm capacity and then increasing capacity. The feds can have some impact in that area by using military resources to clear harbors and major roadways. Some progress has been made as Washington has waived the Jones Act for PR so that may add somewhat to the available cargo ship capacity to deliver supplies.
Restoration of communications infrastructure will be heavily reliant initially on some FEMA efforts to work with the private sector to get temporary mobile cell towers set up. This requires adequately cleared roadways to reach remote communities, again an area where the military can help.
Finally, the PR power grid was in poor shape before the storm. Monitoring days without power as a metric is problematic as the feds have little control over the available stock of power lines, poles, transformers, and such. There is a luck factor involved, including the fact that Florida was hit just days before by Irma and utilities there may have been placing orders for the same material that PR now needs. So even if PR orders needed supplies immediately they may have to wait on its manufacture to get all they need.
Back in 2004 when Cayman was hit by a Cat 4/5 storm during the same season that Florida was hit by 4 hurricanes. We would have been without power for many, many months but for pure luck. Our local power company is a subsidiary of a Canadian company with operations in Belize. As the storm was hitting Cayman they had a cargo ship already fully loaded with electrical transformers and such already on its way from Canada to Belize. They diverted the shipment to Cayman and we were only without power for 2 months. Estimates were up to a year to get the needed supplies otherwise.
Right, and of course Puerto Rico’s Representatives and Senators will be raising hell in Congress to get money and aid. Oh, wait, they don’t have any with a vote. They have to depend on the Reps and Senators from states to take pity on them.
And the President, who wants to keep them on his side in the Electoral College, will of course do everything he can. Oh, wait, they don’t have votes in the Electoral College, so he can ignore them.
And then there’s the [del]Navigation Acts[/del] Jones Act which helps ensure they get aid quickly, provided its carried on ships registered to the [del]Empire[/del] United States.
Sarcasm aside, you can’t just say that Puerto Rico is an example of how the federation is supposed to work. Puerto Rico is not a state and lacks access to the protections in the federal system that all states benefit from. Any state that suffers this sort of disaster, such as Texas or Florida, has clout in Washington to get federal help. Puerto Rico does not have that clout and is dependent on making its case by pleading for aid.
This crisis is not an example of federalism in action. It’s something else, in my opinion, which I won’t comment on since we’re in GQ.