Some folks think the show is over now that the media has moved on to other more exciting news. It's far from over for all the folks affected by the recent hurricanes.

Not a Single Living Person Left on Barbuda

With 95 percent of the structures on the tiny island of Barbuda destroyed, all 1,800 residents have been evacuated, leaving it uninhabited for the first time in 300 years.

Power Grid

How does the government help in the aftermath of a hurricane? six hours after Irma passed, a code enforcement guy gave Celso Perez ticket for having a downed fence . I'm not kidding.

Thanks for protecting us, Miami-Dade code enforcement. :rolleyes:

Onward and upward,
airforce

In one county they are fining people for repairing their roofs without a permit.

Guess I would go to jail for jap-slapping the code enforcement officer and kicking his ass off my property.

That makes two of us.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Cash Is in Short Supply in Storm-Ravaged Puerto Rico

By Jonathan Levin


Hurricane Maria sends island back to pre-credit card days
Decimated power grid hampers ability to trace revenue

In post-hurricane San Juan on Monday, commerce picked up ever so slightly. With a little effort, you could get the basics and sometimes more: diapers, medicine, or even a gourmet hamburger smothered in fried onions and Gorgonzola cheese.

But almost impossible to find was a place that accepted credit cards.

“Cash only,” said Abraham Lebron, the store manager standing guard at Supermax, a supermarket in San Juan’s Plaza de las Armas. He was in a well-policed area, but admitted feeling like a sitting duck with so many bills on hand. “The system is down, so we can’t process the cards. It’s tough, but one finds a way to make it work.”

The cash economy has reigned in Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria decimated much of the U.S. commonwealth last week, leveling the power grid and wireless towers and transporting the island to a time before plastic existed. The state of affairs could carry on for weeks or longer in some remote parts of the commonwealth, and that means it could be impossible to trace revenue and enforce tax rules.

The situation further frustrates one of the many challenges already facing a government that has sought a form of bankruptcy protection after its debts swelled past $70 billion: boosting revenue by collecting money that slips through the cracks.
Tax Contempt

In fact, the power blackout only exacerbates a situation that has always been, to a degree, a fact of life in Puerto Rico. Outside the island’s tourist hubs, many small businesses simply never took credit cards, with some openly expressing contempt for tax collectors and others claiming it was just a question of not wanting to deal with the technology.

But those were generally vendors of bootleg DVDs, fruit stands, barbers -- not major supermarkets. Now, the better part of the economy is in the same boat.

Cash was in short supply. Many Puerto Ricans were still living off what money they thought to withdraw ahead of the storm. Most ATMs on the island still weren’t working because of the power outage or because no one had refilled them.

In Fajardo, a hard-hit coastal area, the paper printouts taped to sheet metal storm shutters read: “Cash only, thank you.” Jenny Rivera Valentin, a 50-year-old hair dresser from Humacao, didn’t mind. She was just glad to find an open store. Her town had been “totally destroyed,” she said. And just about every place was closed.

At the nearby Fajardo CVS -- or CV, as it appeared with the S obliterated by Maria -- the signage was similar: “Cash” scrawled in red marker.

As Banco Popular, Puerto Rico’s biggest bank, opened Monday morning in San Juan, the line stretched about 200 people deep for banking and ATM services. People fanned themselves with whatever they could find and held umbrellas against the sun. At the back stood Giddel Galliza, 64, a music teacher.

“I didn’t want to come because of the lines,” he said. “I need money for basic needs, food, gas -- my tank is full but it won’t be forever. I normally pay with my card.”

Across the street at Banco Santander it was much the same story. Erasmo Santiago, a 63-year-old mailman, said he was actually a Popular client but opted to pay a fee and go for the slightly shorter line. “I have my mom living with me, she’s 83,” he said. “So I need money.”

Want to know what life would be like after an EMP attack? Look at Puerto Rico.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Mass Exodus from Puerto Rico Feared after Hurricane and Debt Crisis

‘Puerto Rico is going to collapse into a humanitarian crisis’

NBC News - September 27, 2017

Inside the steamy San Juan airport, mothers sleep on the floor with their children. Travelers, many of whom have been there for days, fan themselves as they wait for a flight out.

The lines are long and there is no air conditioning, but after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans are eager to just get out — and the island’s governor fears many will not return.

“My expectation is to rebuild stronger than ever,” Gov. Ricardo Rossello told NBC News. “But clearly if this is not taken seriously … Puerto Rico is going to collapse into a humanitarian crisis.”

Saddled with a ballooning debt crisis, Puerto Rico has already seen a historic migration of about half a million people from the island in the past 10 years. Now, following the most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. territory in decades, the outflow is sure to hasten.

"People were leaving in search of better economic opportunities. Now people are leaving because of a humanitarian crisis," said Teresita Levy, a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at Lehman College in the Bronx. "They’re trying to get out because they are worried about not having enough food and supplies, services not being restored. What happens if you have a medical emergency and the hospital doesn’t have a generator?"

For many Puerto Ricans, there is no alternative but to leave for the mainland: Gas is scarce, there's no running water, and only about 5 percent of the island has had power restored.

"If anybody was thinking of coming [to the mainland United States], they are probably now coming anyway," Levy said.

has pleaded for more aid, and warns of a mass exodus if his island doesn't get help from the federal government, which is also still contending with the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the Southeast.

"There needs to be unprecedented relief for Puerto Rico so that we can start the immediate effort right now with the deployment of resources, but also the mid- to long-run recovery," he said. "If we have that, we can avoid a humanitarian crisis in the United States. But if we don’t have that, you will see thousands, if not millions, of Puerto Ricans flocking to the United States."

Experts say major hurricanes often cause a mass migration, particularly among those in a higher socioeconomic status.

Tatyana Deryugina, a professor of finance at the University of Illinois who studies the economic impact of disasters, tracked Hurricane Katrina evacuees for years after the Category 5 storm ravaged New Orleans.

She said her research indicates that about a third more people left New Orleans than would have otherwise, and only half of them came back in the eight years after the storm.

"Obviously a big difference with Puerto Rico is it's an island," she said. "As far as I can tell, there's no place within Puerto Rico that’s really better, so if you want to leave, probably you're going to just leave the island entirely."

And the type of people who leave will affect Puerto Rico's recovery efforts and its essential services, she added.

"I think we're going to see more advantaged people leaving, the people who have an easier time buying airfare or a boat ticket — which could be, unfortunately, some of the wealthier individuals, like doctors," she said.

Brock Long, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he had yet to see evidence of a mass migration in Puerto Rico, and said FEMA was treating Puerto Rico "just like any other state."

"We need you to know that we are working our butts off to help the people of Puerto Rico," Long said on MSNBC.

For some, though, that's not enough.

Luis Romero is one of tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have already fled since the hurricane hit. He and his wife left their San Juan home for refuge near Sarasota, Florida, and they're considering making the move permanent.

"People are not going to wait for long," he said. "They are going to start flying over here in droves."

If that happens, Rossello says, "it would devastate our revenues. It would be a brain drain, most likely."

The experts say there are ways to negate that. Congress could allocate money specifically for rebuilding efforts in Puerto Rico, which would attract construction companies and developers, said Deryugina, the finance professor.

Lawmakers could also allow a suspension of Puerto Rico's Promesa debt payments, Levy suggested, referring to the federal law that restructured the island's debt.

"It’s not people leaving that will be the issue, but it’s really, do you have the resources you need to fix what was damaged by the hurricane?" she said. "A year-long or longer suspension of the Promesa debt payments would mean there is money to invest in the infrastructure, schools, to make sure the hospitals are maintained."

Thoughts on Hurricane Harvey

By James C. Jones, EMT/CHCM

While most people prefer to think of this most recent disaster as a singular event that Houston and America will recover from, the reality is quite different. The billions of dollars that must go to rebuilding Houston may look like a boon to the construction industry and replacing the millions of vehicles and other items destroyed will generate some sales and jobs in the short term this is false economy. All of the wealth and labor that will now be expended on rebuilding what was destroyed will be unavailable for other critical needs. Rebuilding hundreds of thousands of homes in Houston is not building hundreds of thousands of homes for others.

Funds to rebuild Houston will have to come from progress and proactive programs such as infrastructure improvements, the maintenance of bridges, dams, roads and flood control systems in other regions. Resources will have to come from security, defense and emergency preparedness. The hundreds of billions now spent on security and the endless war after the 9/11 attacks is not helping the poor or building safer cities. The losses from Hurricane Katrina reduced the defenses in other cities. Each disaster weakens our capacity to respond to the next disaster and disasters are happening with increasing frequency and severity.

Hurricane Harvey also demonstrated on a small scale the domino affect of disasters. The flooding caused sewage systems, water pumping systems, hospital generators failed, explosions and fires caused by failed systems could not be accessed by fire and police. The temporary shutdown of a few refineries impacting the entire country. Each new disaster makes the next disaster more probable and/or more costly. The politicians and the media work overtime to paint a picture of progress and security, but all of the trends are downward. Every civil disorder, every economic decline, every terrorist act, every flood, every storm, ever wildfire, every man-made disaster makes us poorer, weaker, and more vulnerable to the next and even worse event.

Eventually this chain reaction will lead to a multi-faceted apocalyptic situation. This may even be hard to recognize until our children living in a ruined and subjugated world look back. This process of multiple and increasing disasters leading to more decline and vulnerability is a worldwide phenomenon. We can add revolutions, epidemics, famines, wars and water shortages to the spiral in other parts of the world. These categories of disaster have not yet been added to America’s disaster spiral. The fact is that the world is broke and civilization is in a death spiral that it refuses to recognize. In the words of George Orwell “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. The spiral is irreversible, but individuals and groups can save lives, protect freedoms and preserve human values and ideals through self-reliance and survival concepts and practices.

What It’s Really Like After the SHTF

Things are dire in Puerto Rico. We haven’t heard much directly from people there since Hurricane Maria took out power for the entire island, but what we do know is that the situation is desperate. This is a shocking, real-life glimpse into what it’s really like when the S hits the fan.

Puerto Rico’s $74 Billion Burden Left It Helpless When Maria Hit

By William Selway, Ezra Fieser, Jonathan Levin, and Laura Blewitt

October 10, 2017,

Year after year, as Puerto Rico’s government drew ever closer to ruin, it cut hundreds of millions of dollars from roads, schools and other public works.

It neglected the electricity system, leaving it dilapidated and prone to prolonged outages. The water utility, which was leaking untreated sewage, put a $1.4 billion construction plan on hold. At least 5,800 police and firefighting jobs were cut. Unable to cover its share, Puerto Rico lost federal funds for work on its 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) of roads.

Long before Hurricane Maria struck Sept. 20, a man-made disaster left the bankrupt U.S. commonwealth vulnerable, according to a review of the territory’s finances and $74 billion debt.

While Puerto Rico’s political leaders almost doubled the debt since 2006, proceeds were often used to keep the bureaucracy afloat, paper over deficits or finance projects that did little to pull the economy from recession. After investors stopped buying the U.S. territory’s bonds, agencies warned that the electricity and water systems were falling into decay. Investments in roads, schools, utilities and other public projects slid to $906 million last year from $2.4 billion in 2012, according to the Government Development Bank.

“This devastation is the byproduct of a long-standing set of decisions,” Governor Ricardo Rossello, who took office in January, said in an interview, referring to the crippled power grid. “It is something we knew was going to happen.”
Final Blow

Almost three weeks after Maria pounded Puerto Rico with 155 mile-per-hour winds, only 15 percent of the 3.4 million residents have electricity, nearly half the phone service is out and about 40 percent of customers still wait for clean water. The cyclone caused an estimated $95 billion of damage, more than a year’s economic output, according to figures cited by the island’s federal oversight board.

“The decades-long failure to provide much-needed maintenance to key infrastructure in Puerto Rico means that the electric grid, principal roads, and water treatment and distribution plants were in an already weakened state,” Sergio Marxuach, policy director for the Center for a New Economy, a San Juan nonprofit. “As a result, the already devastating power of the storms was magnified.”
Magical Thinking

Money was no panacea. More than a dozen agencies routinely sold tax-exempt bonds to investors with a voracious appetite for the securities, which paid higher yields than those issued by other American governments. That cycle -- which more than quadrupled the debt since 1999 -- continued until former Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla in 2015 said the obligations were too onerous. The island declared bankruptcy in May, and some bonds now trade for pennies on the dollar.

“There was a widespread belief that the constitutional guarantee would ensure that investors would be repaid or that Congress would bail them out,” said Charles Venator Santiago, a University of Connecticut political science professor. “Part of it is also a lot of mismanagement at the local level. The elites in Puerto Rico, nobody really cared about Puerto Rico, they just wanted to make as much money as possible.”
Fragile Grid

Nowhere has the neglect been as apparent as at the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Relying on deals with creditors since 2014 to avoid defaulting on its $9 billion of debt, the system was bankrupt and in need of $4 billion of upgrades even before the hurricane.

A power-plant fire in September 2016 knocked out power across the island for days. The authority said in an April report that “years of under-investment have led to severe degradation,” rendering transmission and generation equipment “unsafe and unreliable.”

Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin likened the system to a decades-old automobile.

“It can be a good car, but after 20 years everything breaks,” he said. “It was very fragile.”
Leaking Filth

The water system has also been degenerating. In late 2015, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority agreed to spend about $1.5 billion on improvements to settle with the federal government for releasing untreated sewage and other pollutants into the waterways around San Juan, the island’s biggest city.

Last year, Puerto Rico shelved a plan to sell $900 million of bonds for water projects, because its defaults made it a pariah to investors. In its most recent financial report, the authority said there was a “strong concern" that lack of capital investment could result in a “critical situation.”

The storm dealt just such a blow: According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, by Oct. 3 nearly one-third of the wastewater plants weren’t working, and sewage was released into waterways.

In Ceiba, a small east coast town, Benjamin Ramos-Nieves said he fears the utility’s crisis will spread disease.

“We can’t even bathe,” said Ramos-Nieves, a retired Army veteran. “We couldn’t control the storm, but afterward things have been worse because of the condition our infrastructure was in.”
Withered Forces

Puerto Rico also had cut back on another vital resource: public servants. With the population and the economy in decline, the island reduced police-department staffing to about 14,058 by January 2016, nearly 5,400 fewer than in 2008, according to financial reports. The cohort of firefighters dropped by about 500 to 1,733.

The pressure has continued with Puerto Rico now under the oversight of a federal board charged with ending the fiscal crisis. Hector Pesquera, secretary of public safety, said $28 million was cut in the last budget from the seven agencies he oversees.

Police officers have bought their own boots and motorcycle oil, Pesquera said. A lack of investment in communications equipment left firefighters unable to relay emergency calls.

During the storm, hundreds of pleas for help came into San Juan. Without a reliable radio and phone system, dispatchers couldn’t channel calls to local stations. They resorted to posting pleas on their Facebook pages, said Luis Soto, a firefighter and vice president of the union that represents department workers.

“Most of the communications system we have is from the stone ages. There is no communication of any kind in some stations, not radio, not telephone,” said Soto. “In many stations, we only could respond when a citizen or the police came to the station.”

Almost three weeks after the storm, residents still wait for word from Washington on how much aid will come. It’s unclear how many will stick around to see: Tens of thousands have already been leaving for the U.S. mainland, and, if residents continue to move, the financial decline will get even deeper.

Yvette Del Valle, 65, has spent days assisting at a nursing home and helping clean the streets of Santurce, where neighbors hired two garbage trucks rather than wait for the government.

“You have to have a plan,” said Del Valle, who wants the community to take a more active role in the recovery. “If not, everything will collapse.”

A few moments later, the power went out on the street.

Today Puerto Rico, tomorrow California (or maybe Illinois). It may be cruel, but I would let Puerto Rico default. Maybe it will serve as a warning for some other states, and their investors.

Onward and upward,
airforce