Author Archives: recoverydiva

Recovery Issues in Puerto Rico – Sept. 22

Posted on by
Reply

Puerto Rico Faces Mountain of Obstacles on the Road to Recovery

For Puerto Rico, long crippled by enormous debt and an essentially bankrupt financial system, the road to recovery just went from long to seemingly endless. Still reeling from Hurricane Irma, which knocked out 70 percent of the power when it grazed the island two weeks ago, it faces a mountain of need in the coming months just as the federal government is stretched to the limit grappling with the destruction left by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

And unlike Texas and Florida, politically powerful states on the mainland, Puerto Rico is an impoverished, Spanish-speaking commonwealth. It is an island to boot, making aid delivery all the more cumbersome and expensive.

Since Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, we can expect a large number will move to the mainland either temporarily or permanently:

 

Many Obstacles to Recovery in Puerto Rico

Posted on by
Reply

Hurricane Maria Live Updates: In Puerto Rico, the Storm ‘Destroyed Us’

Puerto Rico faces numerous obstacles as it begins to emerge from the storm: the weight of an extended debt and bankruptcy crisis; a recovery process begun after Irma, which killed at least three people and left nearly 70 percent of households without power; the difficulty of getting to an island far from the mainland; and the strain on relief efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other groups already spread thin in the wake of several recent storms.

Why It’s Time to Stop Calling These Hurricane Disasters “Natural”

Posted on by
2

From the WashPost, this opinion piece authored by an MIT professor: Why it’s time to stop calling these hurricane disasters ‘natural’

We must first recognize the phrase “natural disaster” for what it is: a sham we hide behind to avoid our own culpability. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and wildfires are part of nature, and the natural world has long ago adapted to them. Disasters occur when we move to risky places and build inadequate infrastructure.

In the United States, we have in place a range of policies that all but guarantees a worsening string of Katrinas, Sandys, Harveys and Irmas as far as we can see into the future. Climate change acts as a threat-multiplier to these policy-generated disasters, making them progressively worse than they would have been in a stable climate.

Call for Better Hurricane Prediction

Posted on by
Reply

From the WashPost: Hurricanes are menacing our economy. We have to invest in better prediction.

To protect our communities and our nation’s economy, we must make smart investments that will advance our forecasts. This would provide actionable intelligence for officials making evacuation decisions, utility crews positioning in advance to restore power to affected areas, and businesses safeguarding valuable inventory.

Although the scientific community has been mobilized to confront these challenges, the government in recent years has cut annual spending on its flagship hurricane forecast improvement program from $13 million to less than $5 million. Compared with the costs of Harvey and Irma, this is as though we own a $30,000 car and will not spend more than about 90 cents a year to protect it.

Other countries are outpacing us in weather prediction.