I’m glad you are OK, JD
Good luck JD. Maybe all the Federal money and donations that will pour in will help spur the economy of PR and instead of dragging the economy down even more, help it revitalize a bit.
(OK, I’m probably talking out of my butt, but trying to find a glimmer of hope at least.)
$120 Billion is a lot of money.
I have lived through at least 2 cat 5 ‘storm of the century’ type disasters. Eye and all. María for me was ‘just’ a tropical storm, with a few cat 1 level gusts. And I was somehow more on edge, even when services were never interrupted and we only suffered cosmetic damages to our home.
What this has done is give me a refresher course on the many ways Mother Nature can fuck us up.
I want to know too.
Way too early to be certain but one track in the spaghetti model has Maria heading right up the Chesapeake.
24 hrs after Maria
The flooding hit its peak after midnight, in the pre-dawn dark people were getting picked up off of rooftops in Toa Baja (just west of SJ). Too many people had been in denial about the flood risk and the control measures just got overwhelmed.
Water service cut off in many places due to power failures and the flooding.
Over half the landmass and maybe a third of the population still in Schrodinger status, and it’s beginning to cause tension. So we did find out, the comms systems installed over the last 20 years were not up to it at all. And that we need to equip every town hall, hospital and government center with an old school box radio that you can hang the aerial from a tree and have someone hand crank the generator. Ham operators would be welcome to see if they can raise someone.
The state emergency manager did say be prepared to spend up to Friday without any public services other than energency response. Many departments are having issues with even finding where are their crews. Best case hope is that we’ll have people from the cut off sectors break out.
Spent the morning with neighbors pooling together our axes, machetes, “shovels, rakes and implements of destruction” to get the street clear of fallen trees. Kudos to the bunch of college guys who were eager to lend muscle to assist us Jurassic painbags, could not have done it without you.
Thanks so much for keeping us informed. My boricua friends are completely freaked over the lack of info coming out, and our sat anthena got grabbed by the wind and is pointing somewhere to another galaxy, so no news.
You are my trusted news source right now.
Guajataca Dam may be about to fail.
And authorities are having a hard time reaching everyone both with the news and with resources for evacs. 70,000 at risk.
The lake is huge: 2 square miles of water, held back by a 90 year old structure.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for everyone to get out of the way safely.
Indeed and it has been a punishing schedule of one evacuation after another – Toa Baja yesterday, Ocean Park last night, now the Guajataca watershed.
And people upset about lack of communications are jamming the roads trying to get to their hometowns and families in person when it’s not yet safe.
As the picture clears some big challenges begin showing up. There ARE inventories of fuel and food, but you need passable roads and, especially in the case of fuel, for people to not cause a panic-driven shortage (and to not waste fuel trying to drive to somewhere impassable).
Getting comms and water back online and ensuring hospitals have power, water and supplies, are the priorities.
The port in SJ seems in good working order but now there are some boats not accounted for so now the Coast Guard, Navy and Maritime Police have to sound the channel to make sure there are no sunken obstructions. ELEVEN vessels are holding to come in, including those that bring mobile power plants and supplies to get the water and phones back up. The Ponce port has similar problems plus some dock damage; Mayagüez and the smaller regionals do not have the real heavy capacity. The fuel/oil/gas ports at Yabucoa and Guayanilla/Peñuelas seem to have only minor damage.
The curfew and Blue Law have been extended to Sunday but both are being observed and enforced irregularly. There’s only so many police and National Guard and they keep getting all pulled away to respond to some big emergency.
Still no contact with the hometown relatives; initial reports are the place got crushed.
I’m so sorry, I hope you get some better news soon.
Yesterday (or was it Thu?) we dispatched a bunch of jets to SJU with relief workers & supplies. All but one of which had to turn back because the airport was still too raggedy.
We’ve got more and larger airplanes laid on for every day UFN to bring in supplies and bring out refugees.
Hurricane Maria imagery (very incomplete, and some areas obscured by clouds)
https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/maria/index.html#10/18.1961/-65.7532
Brian
The Lower Keys are much like JR described including the curfew. Our island of Big Pine took the eyewall and tornadoes. Every power pole in sight was uprooted or broken. Even the huge concrete ones. It took exactly two weeks to get power back but the process will be much slower in PR. My heart aches for PR and I am happy to know there is a Coast Guard Sector there. The Coasties are one big family and will take care of you. I also know there are some Army guys being deployed. Hang On. Help is on the way.
I know it isn’t important compared to the human suffering, but Arecibo may be boned.
Still with bandwidth and signal availability issues.
I’m spending most of my off-curfew time at the response center where we’ve relocated to work with the disaster team.
It is as bad as it sounds in media and worse, and however much the local and federal administration may claim they are doing the greatest, most tremendous response, the man on the street is not really seeing the relief effort. Big issues of fuel resupply and loss of communications but also many people’s storm prep supplies will be running out by now. Stocks ARE there but transportation and distribution is a challenge. Very many impassable roads. People starting to freak out over fuel and drinking water.
Guajataca dam is still up but it is basically ruined and that creates a situation for the whole northwest of the island when it comes to farm irrigation and drinking water.
SJU’s ATC radars were knocked out at the peak and have only got back up to basic levels so flights are not really back to normal, relief being prioritized.
US Coast Guard Sector San Juan learned that when your Ops Center is waterfront in the hurricane belt, the roof had better be a concrete slab and not galvalon.
Crews from the different states are here (last night walked through a lobby full of FDNY) but there is the issue of how do we assign the taskings, when EVERYTHING needs fixing and every community has people in dire trouble.
Biggest need is on the ground, to assist in getting essential supplies to impacted communities and bringing transportation, communications and fuel infrastructure back up.
There have been calls for a Jones Act waiver or fixed time suspension already in Congress. Immediate short-term action should also be called for on the executive side so FEMA can muster the resources to start getting the aid from the shipping dock to the street.
The PR nonvoting Congresswoman is in DC now blitzing the media outlets, fellow congressmen, and executive departments to prevent a loss of attention to this crisis. That is right now the biggest risk, that it will be assumed thatbecause FEMA is sending however many million, that’s that and attention can move on. We need to keep banging the drum.
Good to hear from you and wishing you the best.
As of 7PM EDT tonight, the Executive says they don’t want to waive the Jones
Act. Their Shipper buddies have too big a lobby. So, suck it PR. :mad:
Wasn’t Jones waived for a bit for Texas and Florida? Am I remembering that incorrectly?
And, Puerto Rico being an island would seem to need it even more.
Thank you for the update JR.
Well, someone has his ear. Not really sure who.
This is heartbreaking, JR, I feel the desperation, and everything seems to be happening in slow motion. I feel like donating money is, like my mom used to say, the lazy person’s generosity. I feel like I should be doing something else, but don’t know what.