Two articles on the difficulties of being a State Emergency Management Director:
As of Sept. 28th, a questionable choice of a new head of the FL OEM Agency.
From Reuters: Power blackout leaves darkened Puerto Rico isolated and paralyzed.
The Diva thinks the situation is Puerto Rico is more dire than any ever seen in the U.S. The extent of the devastation and the fact that both the power co. and the Commonwealth government seem to resemble post-war Germany more than any example of the aftermath of a natural disaster in the U.S.
As of Sept. 27, several newspapers have articles that detail how poorly the disaster response is going, giving President Trump some of the blame for lack of leadership.
Presently, I doubt that the National Disaster Recovery Framework will be adequate to deal with the extensive damage and unique requirements of Puerto Rico. The ratio of destruction is higher than any previous natural disaster. Therefore, the recovery process may need a Marshall Plan approach.
Please see comments from readers that follow.
Update: On Sept. 28th, see this article from the NYTimes, which also mentions a Marshall Plan type recovery plan: Washington Set Puerto Rico Up for Disaster
Business Groups To Trump: Let’s Stop Building In Dangerous Flood Zones
President Trump repealed Obama-era flood rules weeks before Harvey hit. Now about 30 business, emergency management, environmental, and fiscally conservative groups are urging him to adopt new rules — while avoiding the words “climate change.”
From Bloomberg News, see: Puerto Rico’s Recovery Needs Trump’s Leadership. When millions of Americans are suffering, the president should pay attention.
Puerto Rico’s electric grid is down. The destruction of cellphone towers has rendered smartphones dumb. Roads have been washed away, a crucial dam has burst, hospitals are crippled. Thousands of homes and buildings have been destroyed. Water and food are in short supply.
In short, Governor Ricardo Rossello is not exaggerating when he says that his island, home to 3.4 million U.S. citizens, faces a “humanitarian disaster.” Yet for the last several days, President Donald Trump has ignored this national crisis as he pursues petty spats with sports figures.
Here is another sharp-edged article, from the Guardian: Trump warned: send help or risk making Puerto Rico crisis ‘your Katrina’
The Storms Moved On. The Caribbean Islands Fear the Tourists Might, Too.
Back in 1989, after Hurricane Hugo hit the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Diva was in St. Thomas doing field work on the disaster. She remembers that the local priorities were reconstruction of the port and resumption of business for the high-end jewelry stories and other tourist attractions. They were of higher priority than reconstructing housing, which she thought was odd. But for a tourist-dependent economy, and a place with a mild climate, those priorities made sense.
In a matter of hours, Hurricane Maria wiped out about 80 percent of the crop value in Puerto Rico — making it one of the costliest storms to hit the island’s agriculture industry, said Carlos Flores Ortega, Puerto Rico’s secretary of the Department of Agriculture.
Across the island, Maria’s prolonged barrage took out entire plantations and destroyed dairy barns and industrial chicken coops. Plantain, banana and coffee crops were the hardest hit, Mr. Flores said. Landslides in the mountainous interior of the island took out many roads, a major part of the agriculture infrastructure there.
From the weather team at the WashPost.: Harvey. Irma. Maria. Why is this hurricane season so bad?
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From Bloomberg technology: A Storm’s Never Destroyed a Grid Like Maria Ruined Puerto Rico’s
Another take on this same topic, from the Wall St. Journal: Puerto Rico’s Power Woes Are Decades in the Making. Years of underinvestment and massive debts left the energy grid vulnerable
An another article on a likely outcome of the extended outage. As might be expected, a major outmigration is expected. See this article in the Wash Post on Sept. 23 titled Thousands Could leave PR for Good.
Harvey spells it out: markets alone won’t protect you, by Joseph Stiglitz
It is ironic, of course, that an event so related to climate change would occur in a state that is home to so many climate-change deniers – and where the economy depends so heavily on the fossil fuels that drive global warming.
Here is an article on a related topic: A year before Harvey, Houston-area flood control chief saw no “looming issues”
Recovery Diva 