heywood on 2/10/2017 at 13:37
This isn't either-or. The fact that people can apply for individual assistance now doesn't preclude them from seeking immediate assistance for their immediate needs. They can always apply for individual assistance later. Normally, FEMA gives you up to 60 days to apply, although that deadline is usually extended for major disasters.
This is making hay out of a non-story and it's why I don't consider infotainment personalities like Maddow a source of news.
Nicker on 2/10/2017 at 13:54
Pursuant to the topic of this thread, I think the point is that Trump has chosen to remind Puerto Rico of it's obligation to feed his Wall Street Banker friends, rather than working overtime to get emergency assistance the US citizens in dire need. Also the NFL....
heywood on 2/10/2017 at 14:15
It almost goes without saying that Trump acted like an idiot. If the point was to shame Trump, you don't need to fluff up a non-story to do it. Just wait for him to speak.
Starker on 2/10/2017 at 16:09
I'm not saying that it's an either-or situation, I'm saying that it's idiotic to ask people what's impossible now and will be for months. It shows that they are either clueless or that they just don't care. The fact that there are more pressing concerns right now only exacerbates the salt in the wound. And of course I'm blaming Lord Dampnut as well. The fish rots from the head down, as they say.
As for the more pressing matters, like fuel and water and food, how hard is it to figure out the logistics of dropping things from an helicopter? The US spends more money on military than several next countries combined and they can't do disaster relief? Any way you look at it, either someone somewhere has screwed up hard or the US is wilfully abandoning Puerto Rico. If Obama could figure out how to send help to Haiti, there is no reason it should take longer to send help to Puerto Rico.
Oh, and I'm not bringing this issue up to shame Lord Dampnut. If I wanted that, I'd just quote him verbatim. I have yet to find a better way to humiliate the man.
heywood on 3/10/2017 at 16:59
So what are you suggesting then, that FEMA should not declare Puerto Ricans eligible for individual disaster assistance until everyone has their power back on? That's absurd. Why delay the start of longer term relief if they can start the process now?
My brother lives on St. Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands which was hit by a much stronger storm (Irma) on Sep 6 which only glanced the North shore of Puerto Rico, so I've been following this closely. That storm literally flattened Barbuda, did fairly catastrophic damage to St. Martin/St. Maarten, the BVI, the Northern USVI (St. John and St. Thomas), and serious damage in Florida. Then came Maria, which directly hit Dominica, St. Croix, and Puerto Rico, and also hit St. Thomas and St. John a second time. From everything I've seen, the islands directly hit by Irma have suffered far more extensive damage than the islands hit by Maria.
On St. Thomas, the US military rolled in a couple days after Irma passed, arriving by boat since the airport was unusable. In addition to bringing supplies, they provided medical assistance and evacuated the people who needed hospital care, since St. Thomas lost their hospital during the storm, they cleared the roads, set up shelters, helped restore power to the main town, and got the airport semi-open again (although without power, it's VFR only and there's no commercial flights). Within the week after Irma, the US military called up thousands of National Guard for immediate duty and chartered a large cruise ship to take about 2000 of them to St. Thomas and house them through the end of the year for relief efforts. A week or so after Irma, I read that the US military had approximately 20,000 troops spread across the Caribbean and Florida for hurricane relief. In addition to the USVI, the US Navy was also supporting relief efforts across the Caribbean e.g. transporting British Marines to the BVI.
But as soon as the Irma relief effort ramped up in the Caribbean, they all had to hunker down and/or get out of dodge because Hurricane Maria came through exactly two weeks after Irma. That was a huge setback as the Navy and Coast Guard sailed their ships out of the threatened area to avoid Maria. Some went back to East coast ports, and had to go back again. Others went to Dominica since that was the first and worst hit by Maria, and/or to St. Croix. Hurricane Maria also made a mess of St. Thomas and St. John again, undoing a lot of the initial cleanup and repair efforts. So the relief effort was like starting over on those islands. And don't forget that Eastern Texas and Southern Louisiana were pretty devastated by Hurricane Harvey just two weeks before Irma. There are still a lot of people tied up with Harvey relief since that storm cleared out just over a month ago. It would be an understatement to say that the government organizations who are tasked with disaster relief, either as a primary responsibility (FEMA) or additional duty (military) are stretched pretty thin these days.
Nevertheless, according to this "by the numbers" article that ran on Saturday, every municipality in Puerto Rico has been visited to provide emergency supplies:
(
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-by-the-numbers/720731001/)
On Sunday, I heard there were 6400 US military on Puerto Rico, up from 4000 earlier last week. It's not enough, more are arriving, but people don't materialize out of thin air. One of the things you may not know about the US military is that most of the people who provide logistics, transportation, medical care, etc. are in the Reserves and National Guard, i.e. they have day jobs. And much of the transportation capacity is provided by commercial shippers. Mobilizing these forces, commandeering the transportation assets, kicking the supply chain into action to provide them with the resources and supplies they need, establishing the temporary operations centers and forward bases they need to do their job, etc. - all of that takes planning, time, and human effort. The military has people, assets, supplies, etc. on hand to rapidly deploy a small force anywhere in the world, but putting together a logistics operation to supply tens of thousands of troops and millions of people across an archipelago isn't something that happens super fast.
It also requires facilities ready to accept them. Hillary Clinton tried to inject herself into the news a few days after the storm by tweeting that Trump should send USNS Comfort (the huge hospital ship) when there was no port in Puerto Rico ready to handle such a large ship after the storm.
Another thing that's emerging is that Puerto Rico just wasn't well prepared, even after getting brushed by Irma and having two weeks notice that Maria was coming. Florida activated every one of their National Guard well before Hurricane Irma hit, issued mandatory evacuations, stocked up shelters, and got prepared. From what I heard from my brother, USVI did the same. In contrast, when the storm hit only about 1/3 of the PR National Guard was on duty. Even now it's less than half and a lot of other public servants are no-shows. I feel bad for Puerto Rico, but they're not the only ones suffering. There's devastation all over the whole region.
Starker on 3/10/2017 at 20:49
Nobody says FEMA can't offer disaster assistance right now, but offering it in a way that's practically impossible to receive is just insulting. And yes, I understand that the situation is difficult to deal with, but that's what emergencies are. This is the time to mobilise reserves and volunteers and not get bogged down with bureaucracy.
Also, there are many reasons why only half of PR national guard was on duty. For example, you may not know this, but they too have day jobs, among other things as policemen, firefighters, first responders etc, so as you would imagine they have their hands full what with the hurricane and all.
nickie on 4/10/2017 at 17:55
I'm attempting to unravel what's being said in (
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/10/heres-what-trump-did-wrong-in-puerto-rico/) this article from MotherJones from an original article by New Republic (don't know of them). Despite the title of the article, it seems to be quite a sensible explanation for some of the delays in relief.
I did see in another article somewhere that FEMA were now travelling round to various places with tablets for people to 'borrow' to make their applications for assistance.
Starker on 4/10/2017 at 20:50
That's a pretty good overview of the situation, I think. The blame is not with the people who are there and doing what they can, it's with the people who dragged their feet in allocating resources and were/are dismissive about the severity of the issue.
Tony_Tarantula on 5/10/2017 at 13:01
Quote Posted by Starker
People are not being told to register for emergency aid. That's not the issue here. The issue is that people who have no internet and no prospects of getting access to internet in the near future are being asked to register for FEMA aid by internet. Moreover, these people have more pressing immediate needs right now.
Not unsurprising. What most folks do not realize about how government agencies operate is that they are almost entirely process driven organizations. There were NUMEROUS times where I had to deal with EPA, MILPERS, OPM, etc and they were literally incapable of handling any requirement that worked outside their official process.
This was a frequent issue overseas. Numerous things were supposed to be done in specific formats online or by processing forms in person when all we had was an unreliable satellite connection. Living four hours away in a remote area that is probably the kind of plays that needs to disburse developments funds the most? Too fucking bad. You have to drive five hours through a dangerous area to meet with someone for five minutes to get a signature.
This isn't a "Trump" issue. The entire fucking government is that stupid and ineffectual, and has been for decades.Quote:
Pursuant to the topic of this thread, I think the point is that Trump has chosen to remind Puerto Rico of it's obligation to feed his Wall Street Banker friends, rather than working overtime to get emergency assistance the US citizens in dire need. Also the NFL....
Wall Street Banker Friends? Jamie Dimon regularly sends out intranet emails to his emloyees railing against Trump. Some of the other big bank CEO's do the same thing. They also donated massively to Hillary including a number of extremely lucrative private speaking events for the Clintons. Trump's oddly enough given them a voice but I think it's odd to call them "friends" when most of Wall Street's elite was extremely heavily invested (literally speaking, from their view)
edit: somewhat of a re-dupe, but I came across this at work and wasn't sure where else to put it.
Russia doesn't even come close to this level of foreign influence to where it can force compliance to their wishes from private US companies: (
https://www.bhid.com/company/anti-boycott)