Hurricane Irma [and Maria]

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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As somebody who’s lived for decades smack in the middle of hurricane alley, and has lived through many storms, several hurricanes, and two cat 5s, I don’t think you can imagine the amount of destruction left in the wake of a cat 4, let alone a cat5. The country is simply overwhelmed, EVERYTHING needs repairs. Imagine your city/town/village attacked by a god-sized firehose and leaf-blower for a whole day. I can’t describe it in a way that does it justice.

The first thing people are going to do, understandably, is try to find out the whereabouts of their beloved ones (and good luck with that without power, telephones or internet) and your roads gone with the water. Then they’ll try to put their homes together, as best as they can, even if in too many cases the only thing left is literally a broken concrete slab on the ground, littered with stuff that may have come from miles away. They spend the first few days assessing their situation and figuring out what material possessions they have left (all too often the answer is “none”), what they’ll eat, what they’ll drink, where they’ll go, etc. They are broken, broke, isolated, uninformed, they may be hurt or sick, or somebody in their immediate circle needs urgent care. And let’s not forget, emergency personnel, heroes they are, also have families and homes that need urgent care too.

I have NEVER lived that, and have always had homes that can be best described as concrete bunkers, but even that is not always safe, and it is still fucking terrifying. Flood water can wash the ground from under your house, and there you go, down the current in your expensive concrete tomb.

I am not trying to chastise you. The United States doesn’t get a lot of hurricanes, and gets overwhelmed with a cat 1 (Sandy hit the East Coast as a cat 1), and there’s a reason the scale only goes to cat 5. At that point you’re just toast.

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Oh, by the way, we were hit by Maria’s tail winds, merely at tropical storm levels, and we still suffered damage to our concrete bunke, er, I mean, home. It took us two days to find the pieces the hurricane took (the next day it rained cats and dogs the whole day. Everyone was outside exchanging pieces of their homes like they were baseball cards.

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We took a Cat 4 and like **Mighty Girl ** says the destruction is not imaginable. Everywhere one looks it is a pile of debris. Every house has roof damage and each house or where a house was is a pile of rubble. Without power, water or cell phones for the first ten days many are left to wonder what became of their loved ones or homes. While most people did evacuate many did not. I went about six days before I knew for sure my husband was OK. After the storm it is just trying to get back some semblance of normalcy. It is the chore every day to collect water, cleaning supplies, food. Most cars are damaged if not destroyed as salt water is very unforgiving. At least in the Keys there is and still was a road into the area. Unlike the island of PR where literally everything must be flown or shipped in. I cannot even imagine what they are going through. The heat is oppressive. Throw in sick people or little children and the problems are even more exaggerated.

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I think the only reasonable solution is for everyone near or in the Caribbean to move to Utah.

My definition of ‘reasonable’ may not match yours. :wink:

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And nearly 90% humidity to make it more fun.

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I don’t know about PR, but I can tell you about Fort Myers and Lee County. We suffered relatively little building damage. The structural damage I have seen has been mostly commercial signs torn away and/or smashed and streetlights and road signs that were simply pushed over and torn out of the ground by the wind. But the damage to trees has been EXTENSIVE and heartbreaking. Huge trees have simply been pushed over while others look like they were hit by artillery. Things are not bad here like in PR. It’s really first-world problems like how long it’s taking to clear away debris. It’s been estimated that it may be five months before it’s all cleaned up. There are allegations from the County Manager about profiteering by the clean up companies. All the roads are clear but the sidewalks are a different matter. I’m glad I didn’t try to bike to work in the first days after Irma. I’d have killed myself on a fallen tree along the way. I remember during the storm when it was announced that Irma was now a Cat 2. The effect on people was instant. The tension levels dropped to almost nothing as folks all went, “OK. It won’t be that bad.” That kind of thinking really helped in the aftermath since it cut down on hoarding and other exacerbating behavior. Amazing what a difference it makes when you can just turn down the overall level of anxiety.

So, sitting in a place that’s merely been inconvenienced by the storm and seeing the level of effort it’s taking just to clean it up, I can’t even imagine what it’s like down there in PR. Must be damn near post-apocalyptic.

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Look, the neighbors and I were able to gather up our shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and make it to the main avenue. (BTW the debris was still sitting there a week later). But really, the authorities are geared up for a Cat 2 at worst because Cat 4+ is historically rare.

If this link works,

https://goo.gl/images/TNmnVn

That’s a National Guard truck making its way up a rural road last Friday to repair a comms site. THOUSANDS of miles of road like that in the first week. You’d need a LOT of BIG chainsaws…

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I’ve always wondered about the long-term consequences of having half of your population with some level of PTSD. :confused:

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This morning on my way to work when I passed the staging area for trash which is along the highway and as big and tall as four houses there was a rainbow behind it. I took it as a sign that things will improve eventually. Hurricanes are messy bastards.

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Utah is nice, for hurricane safety for sure .
It has been a couple of weeks since my surprise relocation to the Nation’s Capital to deal with this end of the recovery effort. Still a bit shook up by the rather sudden nature of the move and now in the middle of seeking longer term housing as it’s apparently going to be a while. And my winter gear is in storage back in SJ of course

The updates have not been coming as fast because for one part what I’m told from PR is that after the military ramp-up two weeks ago the pace has re-plateaued (there is only so much you can do, if the bridge’s not there it’s not there and the truck’s not getting through). And for another, quite really the level of different things that are having to get done here in DC is something else and my head is spinning; last week the US House passed $36 Billion in supplemental relief for the various states hit by disasters of all sorts (69 members voted against), with about $6 Bn of that for specific needs in USVI and PR, but we’ re having to run after it in the Senate. And really it’s got to be government funding. Private fundraisers don’t come up with $36Bn however much JLo shakes her ass.
Meanwhile we’re getting a new Sec of Homeland Security, who would be the boss of FEMA, CBE and the Coast Guard all of who are neck deep in it (BTW, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard are being total rock stars in the response process) and so the department will be transitioning in the middle of the mission.

(BTW this is an important learning exercise for HomeSec/FEMA nationally. Here’s what happens when the power, road and phone grids just get taken out in a place the size of Connecticut, with no access to connecting to a neighbor’s. How prepared were you? What really knocked us down was the loss of power/comms/transport infrastructure. If you restore that, you can have the right supplies and services sent to where they are really needed and can be adequately handled. )

Island situation continues to be a mess as one thing gets fixed or stabilized another gets ate up, or a solution is provided but then you run into how do you avail yourself of it. For instance, the Navy sent the Hospital Ship Comfort to give support, but to get patients to the Comfort they have to be evaluated and referred by a local provider as being more than they can handle, and if part of the problem is getting to the provider in the first place…

There is also a continuing issue with supplies finally getting there but being incompetently managed at some point in the chain. And meanwhile of course the criminal class is conducting its own recovery with the filching of supplies which in turn means that shippers don’t want to take them out of the secure areas, contributing to the logjam (this also includes the appearance of fly-by-night shippers and contractors which are another headache).

VP Pence and Speaker Ryan had a lot of Damage Control to do after the Donald’s peculiar visit and his later twitfits; at least Ryan did get to overfly the more badly damaged inland areas and called it a Humanitarian Disaster – the Prez and VP’s minders prevented them from being taken anywhere they could not be whisked out fast.

The twitwars are a mixed blessing. They make people flood the office with distraught calls about how we’re all doomed, but at the same time they prevent us from falling off the radar altogether. I only wish people understood that public pissing matches among politicians don’t feed one child, they must be accompanied by realistic offers of help.

On the water issue: about ¾ of customers in San Juan and the East and South coasts have water service, but the numbers flip in the highland, and even the North and West coast are below 50%. There is an issue with community people opening wells that had been previously condemned by EPA, and with how the mountain stream from which Grandma used to get water was not downslope from clusters of homes and businesses back in her day.

Of course, then there are the “huh?” parts like the people complaining because the Big Mall keeps shutting down due to power failures, and that’s the place they all were going to catch some A/C and charge their phones. Priorities, ladies and gentlemen. Then again people complained in the first place because the Big Mall GOT power and how unfair was that.

The schools are TRYING to get back open by next week, working “old school” mostly on pencil, paper, chalk and board. That oughta be an interesting twist. Meanwhile the Florida and NY state college systems have established in-state rates for any students coming from PR, and Florida is giving provisional reciprocity to PR teaching licences to get personnel to attend to displaced students.

Florida state sources report in the first half of the month 32,000 arrivals from PR; 6,000 are estimated to have gone in the immediate aftermath in September. Not all stayed in Florida, of course (myself included) and not all are long-term displacees, I daresay half will return once they see daylight BUT still it is a worry. Many people who can afford it are sending their elderly or infirm and their children to stay with relatives stateside so that they can keep receiving care or going to school. Even leaving is not easy: the airport is claimed to function at 100% but that’s when the power plant works, and cancellations are still the order of the day.

Especially USDopers, keep up the drumbeat with your federal officials to perform their jobs better (not just tell them they suck) and to support measures to help PR and the other disaster-struck communities get on their feet and back to work. It does make a difference.

Will let you know if I’ve more news.

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For some reason tapatalk doesn’t show me but the last paragraph of the last post, but the reply function shows the whole thing. Curious. Let me know if YOU see the whole thing or else I’ll repost.

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I sse a lengthy post (~a dozen paragraphs)
Thanks for the update

Brian

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JR Who and where are the best places to donate to the PR disaster?

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Ah good. Strange tapatalk behavior.
On donations:

First of all if there is a charity or relief organization a person already respects and trusts to do right, check into what sort of relief aid to Puerto Rico they may be providing and go right ahead if you feel better working with someone you know. I started with this because, sadly, there’s always someone who’ll pop in to object that whatever organization mentioned by name is corrupt or politically or religiously aligned the wrong way, and I am not going to begrudge someone’s good intentions.

Donations of actual supplies and goods require that you have someone at both ends ready to send, deliver, fill the paperwork, pick it up and make themselves responsible. This can get tricky - celebrities like Don Omar have been burned by fixers and brokers. This is why many organizations prefer you send cash.

Major players in the donation area right now are:

United For Puerto Rico: http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/ is the major homegrown fundraising initiative assembled by a partnership of major players in the local business/media sector, United Way, and the office of the First lady. It is a 501(c)3 exempt nonprofit for US tax purposes. At the bottom of the page there is a link for corporate donations.
THEY ALSO CAN COORDINATE MATERIAL DONATIONS: for that I’d strongly recommend you contact the helpline set up by the Governor’s Office in Washington - (202) 800-3133, or -3134 ; maria1@prfaa.pr.gov, maria2@prfaa.pr.gov, to square away what is most useful right now.

One America Appeal: https://www.oneamericaappeal.org/ The campaign led by the living Former US Presidents, that was originally for Harvey/Irma relief; you can choose to earmark for a specific damage area.

The Foundation for Puerto Rico, foundationforpuertorico.org is a locally organized federally-exempt nonprofit that is setting up a relief fund endowment for future development.

UNICEF USA: Humanitarian Aid for Children in Crisis | UNICEF USA as well as Save the Children, the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity are of course all active.

Meanwhile GoFundMe has a listing of verified fundraising campaigns at their site: https://www.gofundme.com/raise-funds/hurricanemaria These include everything from private individual efforts to corporate initiatives.

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I went with Unidos for PR and UNICEF, on the advice of someone “in the business”.

Thanks for the update, JR. Buena suerte.

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I went with Unodos for Puerto Rico and Americares. Thank you for the update, and I wish you all the best. I wish you and all Puerto Ricans all the best.

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A tidbit on recovery efforts in the Turks and Caicos is in ourlocal Cayman news today.

Cayman has sent a few waves of assistance. The most recent included radio technicians who were able to restore broadcasting for Radio Turks and Caicos. The Cayman radio engineer arrived to find that only the transmitting equipment on Grand Turk was still functional.

After day long efforts in each of Provo, Middle Caicos, and South Caicos they were able to get transmitters repaired. However there were still some difficulties in getting the radio signal to the transmitters. In MacGyver-esque fashion the radio engineer installed some old computers at the transmitter sites and got them hooked up to the internet. (Hey! Who knew that would already be working!) The transmitters on those islands are now re-broadcasting the internet stream of Radio Turks and Caicos.

Whatever can be done to make it work until real proper repairs can be done later.
Meanwhile, yesterday (Thursday) morning three more US helicopters made refueling stops in Cayman while making their return to their base in Honduras. That’s three more CH-53 Sea Stallions out of the recovery zone.