Puerto Rico's Governor Dismantles Media Attacks on Trump's Response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/09/25/puerto-ricos-governor-dismantles-media-attacks-trumps-response-hurricane-irma/In an interview with PBS Newshour this evening,

Rosselló thanked the Trump administration for their prompt response: 

JOHN YANG: Governor, are you getting all the aid you need or getting it fast enough from the states? 

GOV. RICARDO ROSSELLO: First of all, we are very grateful for the administration. They have responded quickly.The president has been very attentive to the situation, personally calling me several times. FEMA and the FEMA director have been here in Puerto Rico twice. As a matter of fact, they were here with us today, making sure that all the resources in FEMA were working in conjunction with the central government.We have been working together. We have been getting results. The magnitude of this catastrophe is enormous. This is going to take a lot of help, a lot of collaboration.

So, my call is to congressmen and congresswomen to take action quickly and conclusively with an aid package for Puerto Rico.
 

Last edited by Common Sense (9/27/2017 4:25 pm)

tennyson wrote:

Trump's Katrina. 

Beginning to look that way, isn't it?

Of course, many won't care.
Only 54% of People in a recent poll are even aware that Puerto Ricans are Americans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-americans-dont-know-people-in-puerto-ricoans-are-fellow-citizens.html?mcubz=0

Last edited by Goose (9/28/2017 5:03 am)

Common Sense wrote:

All figures as of September 27, 2017, 9 am EDT There are more than 8,800 federal staff, including more than 600 FEMA personnel, on the ground in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands engaged in response and recovery operations from Hurricanes Maria and Irma.
Commodities and Communications

• FEMA, working in coordination with federal partners, provided more than 4.4 million meals, 6.5 million liters of water, nearly 300 infant and toddler kits to support 3000 infants for a full week, 70,000 tarps, and 15,000 rolls of roof sheeting to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria’s landfall.
• FEMA is delivering food and water to territorial points of distribution (POD) locations in 7 municipalities in Puerto Rico. Please reach out to municipality officials for specific locations. More PODs will continue to open as areas become accessible.
• Officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico opened points of distribution (POD) in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for survivors to get meals, water, and other commodities. The Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands announced that PODs in the islands will be closed Wednesday, but 16 locations in St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John are scheduled to be open tomorrow.
• In Puerto Rico, fuel was delivered to 19 hospitals for power generators. 200 gas stations received fuel yesterday for distribution to residents of Puerto Rico.
• FEMA’s National Business Emergency Operations Center (NBEOC) is facilitating private sector requests for humanitarian relief.The NBEOC continues coordination between government and private sector organizations as the community responds to Hurricanes Maria.


• Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) communications assets and personnel continue to support the FEMA Incident Management Assistance Teams (IMAT), Urban Search and Rescue (US&R), National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), and other federal teams in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• More than 120 satellite phones arrived in Puerto Rico on Tuesday to help address responder communications needs on the ground. Additional satellite phones will arrive to aid response efforts in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• A U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) mobile communications team is in Puerto Rico to help improve communications across the storm-impacted area.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working to conduct assessments and planning for power grid restoration in Puerto Rico, and address the 1.4 million cubic yards of debris across the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Fuel and Transportation

• The Department of Agriculture United States Forest Service deployed 17 chainsaw teams (34 individuals) and one Incident Management Team (IMT) (23 individuals) to conduct emergency road clearance and manage logistics.
• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operations personnel are onsite in St. Thomas to evaluate, fix, and install FAA equipment, in support of air traffic control operations.
• Power is restored to Centro Médico Hospital in San Juan and San Pablo Hospital in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. The Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital in St. Croix and the Schneider Regional Medical Center in St. Thomas are now established as mobile hospitals. More than half of dialysis centers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are open and accessible for patients. More critical care facilities will re-open in the coming days as power and access are restored.
• The U.S. Coast Guard reports the ports of San Juan, Guayanilla, Salinas, and Tallaboa are fully open, and the ports of Arecibo, Fajardo, Culebra, Guayama, and Vieques are open with restrictions in Puerto Rico. The ports of Crown Bay/West Gregerie Channel, Charlotte Amalie, East Gregerie Channel, and Redhook Bay on St. Thomas, the ports of Krause Lagoon, Limetree Bay, and Frederiksted on St. Croix, and the port of Cruz Bay on St. John are open with restrictions. Other ports are undergoing assessments, and expected to be reopened as possible in the coming days.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) deployed debris experts to assist FEMA with debris management strategies in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands completed a Blue Roof install on Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas, and completed its first residential Blue Roof install on September 23. Assessments for St. Croix are ongoing.
• Additionally, USACE coordinated transportation of more than 300 FEMA or Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) generators from across the U.S. to meet anticipated requirements in the islands. In Puerto Rico, the team completed 27 of 32 requested assessments of critical facilities. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, deployed experts continue to meet with FEMA, territory representatives, and other agencies to assess power priorities. USACE completed 90 of 131 requested assessments of critical facilities and began generator installations. Additional assessments and generator installations will continue today.

To see more photos of the federal response to Hurricane Maria, visit our collection in the FEMA Photo Library or the following collections from our federal partners:

• U.S. Department of Defense Photos and Videos
• U.S. Coast Guard Videos and Photos
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection Photos

On Social Media
Fuel was delivered to 200 gas stations & 19 hospitals in PR yesterday as movement of commodities continues to be a priority after #Maria. pic.twitter.com/n0LKXNDpXH— FEMA (@fema) September 27, 2017
All in. U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel transporting supplies to Puerto Rico from South Florida following #HurricaneMaria #CBP pic.twitter.com/hLMrKDzII3— CBP Florida (@CBPFlorida) September 27, 2017
Officials in PR/USVI opened up points of distribution where people can get food/water. Locations: https://t.co/NwKCXQh1OX #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/NQsfSs6IYT— FEMA (@fema) September 26, 2017

 


Wow . . . Impressive attempt to pat oneself on the back . . . Even if the reality of the situation is completely different.

I’ll rely on the first hand experiences relayed to us from our friends who live in St. Croix and St. Thomas. Their reports are that the lack of preparedness and delay in response to storms that had plenty of prior notification before landfall has added to the concern of residents due to shortages of fuel, medicine, food, cleanup, power restoration, logistical placement of equipment and supplies, and informational response from the federal government. When the president of the U.S. doesn’t even seem to be quite sure where the islands are located nor the nationality of the residents, it seems to them that the responsible officials (HHS, FEMA, MERS, NDMS, the Corps of Engineers, and other federal agencies) have treated the islands as second hand citizens. They say that the response of the French government on French St. Martin makes the U.S. government response look like a bunch of uncoordinated, inept amateurs. They’re hoping that the extensive media coverage will highlight their needs and spur the federal government to a more urgent and targeted response.

My wife and I have offered to send needed supplies to our friends and are planning on going down to St. Croix to help out in the next couple of months.

More words of support and encouragement from the inept, insensitive buffoon that is currently posing as the president of the United States.


Trump on Puerto Rican crisis: 'This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water'


President Donald Trump on Friday said "there's never been anything like" the devastation in Puerto Rico, which is facing a humanitarian crisis in the wake of Hurricane Maria sweeping through the Caribbean island last week.

"There's nothing left. It's been wiped out," Trump said during a Friday morning speech to the National Association of Manufacturers.

The president opened his speech on tax reform with his comments on the federal government's relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

"I'd like to begin by sending our thoughts and prayers to the people of Puerto Rico, who have been struck by storms of historic and catastrophic severity," Trump said. "We've undertaken a massive federal mobilization to assist Puerto Rico."

The president said 10,000 emergency responders and other personnel have been sent to the island. Emphasizing the difficulty of the task of rebuilding devastated areas, Trump noted that the US territory is "an island surrounded by water."

"The response and recovery effort probably has never been seen for something like this," Trump said. ”This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water."

He added that Puerto Rico will have to rebuild its infrastructure from "scratch."

"The electrical grid and other infrastructure were already in very, very poor shape, they were at their life's end prior to the hurricanes, and now virtually everything has been wiped out," Trump said. "We're literally starting from scratch."

Trump said the federal government will work with Puerto Rico to figure out how to fund the rebuilding effort and "what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island."

Trump has been criticized for appearing to be less attentive to Puerto Rico than to Texas and Florida following hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

The president's first public response to Hurricane Maria came in a series of tweets in which he focused on the island's weak infrastructure and economy five days after the storm hit.