Hurricane Maria’s rampage demolishes Puerto Rico

[Peter1469]

Hurricane Maria’s rampage demolishes Puerto Rico (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article174488726.html)

Puerto Rico got hit hard. I hear that all of the electricity is out. And the territory is broke.


Sleepless Puerto Ricans arose Wednesday knowing to expect a thrashing from the most ferocious storm to strike the island in at least 85 years. They met nightfall confronting the ruin Hurricane Maria left behind: engorged rivers, blown-out windows, sheared roofs, toppled trees and an obliterated electric grid that cut power to every one of the island’s 3.4 million people.

Even though authorities had barely begun to assess the damage Wednesday evening, the scope of the catastrophe was evident, even if in snippets.
The capital city of San Juan got a walloping. Evacuees at a sports arena had to leave a ground floor when the roof sprang a leak, a space rocket adorning the park at a science museum keeled over and the roof of a radio station blew off, though it kept broadcasting (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article174409151.html)despite the damage.

It will take them a long time to rebuild.

[Common]

The entire island is without power, there was no where for them to evacuate too unless you were rich and could fly out. The island was devestated

[Peter1469]

Their electric grid was in poor shape before the storm. Power outages were common.

[Dr. Who]

They could be without power for at least a month. Let's hope FEMA brings in plenty of water purification systems and generators. It's strange, but I'm not seeing any specific relief efforts for Puerto Rico by FEMA. They mention bringing in water and food to St. Thomas. Puerto Rico has a population of 3.4 million. That is a huge number of people to provision.

[Peter1469]

They could be without power for at least a month. Let's hope FEMA brings in plenty of water purification systems and generators. It's strange, but I'm not seeing any specific relief efforts for Puerto Rico by FEMA. They mention bringing in water and food to St. Thomas. Puerto Rico has a population of 3.4 million. That is a huge number of people to provision.
I assume FEMA will be there soon. It is a territory, so we may not have to wait for them to ask for federal assistance.

[Dr. Who]

I assume FEMA will be there soon. It is a territory, so we may not have to wait for them to ask for federal assistance.

I hope so. Without fresh water, people could start getting ill very quickly.

[Peter1469]

I hope so. Without fresh water, people could start getting ill very quickly.

Yes. Also without electricity a lot of things go away. Refrigeration and AC for two.

[Peter1469]

At least it seems that it will not hit the mainland (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT15/refresh/AL152017_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind+png/175516_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png).

[resister]

They could be without power for at least a month. Let's hope FEMA brings in plenty of water purification systems and generators. It's strange, but I'm not seeing any specific relief efforts for Puerto Rico by FEMA. They mention bringing in water and food to St. Thomas. Puerto Rico has a population of 3.4 million. That is a huge number of people to provision.After Charley struck here in 2004, it took one month to restore power, I still have power to half my house.

Only half the homeowners in PR have insurance, bad year to live there!

[Dr. Who]

Yes. Also without electricity a lot of things go away. Refrigeration and AC for two.

Also clean water, since the water treatment plants won't be pumping. That I expect should be the first order of business. People can survive having to use a BBQ, Hibachi or open fire to cook their food, but lack of clean water and sewerage will take down a population in very short order.

[Dr. Who]

After Charley struck here in 2004, it took one month to restore power, I still have power to half my house.

Only half the homeowners in PR have insurance, bad year to live there!

Being on an island means that fresh water is even harder to come by.

[resister]

Being on an island means that fresh water is even harder to come by.
I would think Uncle Sam is shipping massive amounts, as we type.

[Newpublius]

Being on an island means that fresh water is even harder to come by.

Not necessarily. It's not Bermuda. Puerto Rico is a relatively large island. I don't want to prejudge what P.R. needs or to discourage donations. However, I do 'bet you a dollar' actually will have power. Why? Well, Suez runs !any water systems here and the dam-made reservoirs produce, many at least, hydroelectricity on the other side. Secondly, sewage treatment produces methane which is captured to help power the process. So, they are 'close' to the power.

[Adelaide]

I would think Uncle Sam is shipping massive amounts, as we type.

That seems likely.

They will probably require a lot of help.

[resister]

That seems likely.

They will probably require a lot of help.
I bet, compared to them, we got very lucky. Life must suck, on PR right now.

[Dr. Who]

Not necessarily. It's not Bermuda. Puerto Rico is a relatively large island. I don't want to prejudge what P.R. needs or to discourage donations. However, I do 'bet you a dollar' actually will have power. Why? Well, Suez runs !any water systems here and the dam-made reservoirs produce, many at least, hydroelectricity on the other side. Secondly, sewage treatment produces methane which is captured to help power the process. So, they are 'close' to the power.
I hope that they restore power as soon as possible.

[Grokmaster]

The HS Spanish teacher at my grandsons' school, is from the San Juan area, and her entire family is still there. She hasn't been able to reach anyone, and even the emergency military contact numbers are not working. She's a mess, naturally.

Puerto Rico is facing its roughest stretch in any of our lives, it appears....send what help you can.

[waltky]

Puerto Rico still suffers after Hurricane Maria...
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
One Month After Maria, a Crisis Still Rages in Rural Puerto Rico
October 20, 2017, Lives still at risk as economic activity remains at standstill; Residents struggle by candlelight amid looming mudslide threat


A month after Hurricane Maria battered this mountainous stretch of central Puerto Rico, recovery remained elusive along Highway 152, where 82-year-old Carmen Diaz Lopez lives alone in a home that’s one landslide away from plummeting into the muddy creek below. Without electricity, and without family members to care for her, she’s become dependent on the companionship of a few neighbors who stop by periodically. But a collapsed bridge has made it challenging to even communicate with her friend across the creek, so she’s lived for the most part in solitude, passing the electricity-less days singing “Ave Maria” and classic Los Panchos songs to herself, lighting candles each night so she can find the bathroom. “I just ask the Lord to take care of me, because he’s the only one I have,” Diaz Lopez said Wednesday.


https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i1gbMQ5q6Z0c/v0/800x-1.jpg
A bridge destroyed from Hurricane Maria remains in ruins making travel in the Barranquitas area very difficult.

Diaz Lopez and her neighbors along Kilometer 5 of this badly hit mountain road in Barranquitas municipality are among the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans still at risk as the recovery effort heads into its fifth week. Pipe water returned here in a trickle a few days ago, and the collapsed earth that blocked the road and sent muck into homes has been half-way cleared. But a phone signal is still non-existent, and residents are far from any semblance of sustainable self-sufficiency. The situation threatens to undermine the economic and fiscal future of the island, and is already fueling a flood of Puerto Ricans leaving for the mainland. At this stage in the recovery from the Category 4 storm, many find the current state of the U.S. commonwealth -- home to some 3.4 million American citizens -- unthinkable. “I just haven’t seen a situation where people don’t have access to basic services for so long,” said Martha Thompson, the Puerto Rico response coordinator for the Boston-based charity Oxfam Americas who also worked on the response to Hurricane Katrina.


https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/imcqj9OFmRIU/v3/800x-1.png

Meeting at the White House with the commonwealth’s governor, Ricardo Rossello, President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration’s response to Maria deserves a perfect “10” rating. He also drew attention to the fiscal mess in Puerto Rico that predated the hurricane, suggesting he wants repayment of any reconstruction loans to take precedence over the island’s existing $74 billion debt that pushed it into bankruptcy. Only tenuous, provisional measures seem to be preventing a much greater humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. A government task force has restored electricity to many hospitals and healthcare facilities, but others are sustained by diesel generators that occasionally fail. (APR Energy Chairman John Campion, whose company rents the units for natural disasters, said in an interview that such generators typically have a life span of 500 hours, and the crisis has already lasted longer than that.) Almost 80 percent of residents and private businesses -- not just in the rural mountains, but across the island -- are still without electricity.


https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iIxehfJ30sSw/v0/800x-1.jpg
A boy rides his bicycle past closed stores on a muddy road in Barranquitas

As of Thursday, one-in-three residents lacked running water, and only about 47 percent of cellular towers were operational. Meanwhile, the official death toll, currently at 48, keeps creeping higher, with 109 islanders still reported missing. Many blame an insufficiently robust federal response, while authorities note the myriad logistical challenges that make the high-poverty island distinct from storm-battered states such as Florida or Texas. Certainly, there have been improvements. In the days after the storm, the entire island appeared engulfed in pandemonium; the airport operated at a fraction of its normal capacity with leaky ceilings, no air conditioning or escalators; frantic islanders formed half-mile long lines for gas and diesel; and mayhem ensued on roads and highways, even in the capital, as people tried to dodge fallen trees and street lights.

MORE (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-20/one-month-after-maria-a-crisis-still-rages-in-rural-puerto-rico)

[waltky]

What was Hurricane Maria's real death toll in Puerto Rico?...
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
What was Hurricane Maria's real death toll in Puerto Rico
Nov 20, 2017 - People on this part of the island knew Quintín Vidal Rolón for two things: his white cowboy hat, which he seemed to wear every day of his 89-year life; and his beat-up Ford pickup truck, which he'd been driving for at least 50 years.


It was in that 1962 truck, and wearing that hat, that Vidal spent his days zipping around the mountainous back roads of Cayey, Puerto Rico. He sold hardware from the wooden bed of the pickup. And he used those tools, and a lifetime of sweat, to build houses -- always in concrete. Like him, the material was nothing if not consistent. It was strong enough to stand up to a storm, he told clients and family members. Don't trust anything less durable.

After Hurricane Maria slammed into this US territory on September 20, peeling roofs from wooden homes and amputating branches from trees, the community turned again to Vidal. No one can say exactly how many people survived the storm in the hard-cast structures he helped construct for them, often at little or no cost. But it's likely hundreds, his family said. The man who would have been 90 years old in February survived the storm at home alone. Shortly after, he was seen by neighbors clearing debris from roads and flooded houses.


https://sharing.wcpo.com/sharescnn/photo/2017/11/20/S086531308_1511231072373_72203104_ver1.0_640_480.J PG

It was the aftermath of the hurricane that would prove fatal. No one thought much of the lantern at first. Some neighbors noticed the oil-powered flame flickering in Vidal's living room. He'd started using it after the storm hit -- a light he lit at dusk, as the coquí frogs began their chorus. Maria's winds had toppled power lines like toothpicks in Cayey; and power service in the town, like on much of the island, has been slow to return amid a government response widely described as inadequate. Only 10% of people here have power today, said Mayor Rolando Ortiz. Vidal needed a way to see in the dark.

It was October 20, one month after the storm, when the neighbors smelled smoke. Daisy Lamboy stood on her roof, straining to find cellular signal to call emergency responders. Margarita León busted through Vidal's window, releasing a mushroom of heat. It was too late. Vidal's charred remains were found in a blackened "hellscape," as one relative described it -- a scene so otherworldly, and so seemingly unnecessary, that one firefighter, Vidal's nephew, fainted.

MORE (http://www.wcpo.com/news/national/what-was-hurricane-maria-s-real-death-toll-in-puerto-rico)

[waltky]

$90B worth of damage in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria...
:shocked:
Hurricane Maria caused $90B of damage in Puerto Rico
April 9, 2018 -- Hurricane Maria caused an estimated $90 billion in damage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the National Hurricane Center said Monday.


As part of its final assessment of the storm, the NHC said Hurricane Maria was the most destructive hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in modern times and the third costliest hurricane in U.S. history behind Katrina and Harvey. The NHC said the price tag had a 90 percent certainty. "The combined destructive power of storm surge and wave action from Maria produced extensive damage to buildings, homes and roads along the east and southeast coast of Puerto Rico as well as the south coasts of Vieques and St. Croix," the NHC said.


https://cdnph.upi.com/svc/sv/upi/6421523309427/2018/1/4cbd3365855b99df0671ee5f9fd09bb3/Hurricane-Maria-caused-90B-of-damage-in-Puerto-Rico.jpg
Hurricane Maria caused $90 billion worth of damage in Puerto Rico, making it the third costliest storm in U.S. history.

Maria also knocked down 80 percent of Puerto Rico's utility poles and all transmission lines, resulting in loss of power to essentially all of the island's 3.4 million residents. Nearly all cellphone and municipal water supplies also were knocked out. The NHC reported the official death count stands at 65, but said the number could increase following further investigation. "It should be noted that hundreds of additional indirect deaths in Puerto Rico may eventually be attributed to Maria's aftermath pending the results of an official government review," the center said.

Maria achieved a peak wind intensity of 172 mph and its 74 mph increase in intensity within 24 hours on Sept. 18 made it the sixth-fastest intensifying hurricane in the Atlantic basin record. The hurricane also generated storm surge at maximum inundation levels of 6 feet to 9 feet above ground level along the coasts of Puerto Rico's Humacao, Naguabo and Ceiba municipalities. Heavy rains brought on by Maria caused heavy flooding as river discharges at many locations in the island were at record or near-record levels and one location in Puerto Rico experienced a storm total of nearly 38 inches of rainwater.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/04/09/Hurricane-Maria-caused-90B-of-damage-in-Puerto-Rico/6421523309427/?utm_source=upi&utm_campaign=mp&utm_medium=4

[waltky]

Prob'ly has taken this long to account for all the missing & dead...
:cool2:
Puerto Rico Concedes Hurricane Maria Deaths Were More Than 1,400
8/09/2018 - Officials previously reported just 64 deaths from last year’s powerful storm.


Puerto Rico (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/puerto-rico) has conceded that Hurricane Maria killed more than 1,400 people on the island last year and not just the 64 in the official death toll. The government acknowledged the higher death toll with no fanfare in a report submitted to Congress this week in which it detailed a $139 billion reconstruction plan for the island. That quiet acknowledgement was first reported Thursday by The New York Times.



https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5b6c3e4d1900002b015017b6.jpeg?cache=0adfmrryc5&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale


A man wades on the water while pushing his bicycle through a flooded street in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Catano, Puerto Rico on September 22, 2017.




Puerto Rican officials have admitted that more than 64 people likely died from the powerful storm that knocked out the power grid and caused widespread flooding that made many roads impassable. But a more exact number has been a matter of debate that the government has sought to end by commissioning an academic study due out in coming weeks.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/puerto-rico-raises-death-toll_us_5b6b6d81e4b0bdd062062b0b