ALSO SEE: Life or Death as Puerto Rico's
Older People Go Without Essentials

Puerto Rico Still in Crisis as Trump Arrives

By Jacqueline Klimas and Colin Wilhelm, Politico

03 October 17

The island has the potential for a worsening public health nightmare two weeks after Hurricane Maria barreled through the American territory.

hen President Donald Trump arrives in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, he’ll find an island on the verge of spiraling into a deepening crisis, with 95 percent of the power grid still knocked out and more than half of the 3.4 million residents lacking access to clean drinking water.

Answering calls for a more robust federal response, including from the three-star general leading efforts on the ground, the military is deploying additional forces and sending 18 more aircraft to help provide medical care and reach isolated communities. That’s on top of the more than 12,600 federal employees — including 7,000 troops and 700 FEMA workers — who are already clearing roads, providing security, distributing generators and handing out fuel, water and millions of meals in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But all of that still may not be enough. Much of the help isn’t matching what people actually need, in what Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) on Monday called a “disconnect” with federal officials.

And Democrats who visited FEMA headquarters on Monday said they were discouraged by what they heard and blasted the Trump administration’s leadership.

“The government is not responding with the urgency that is needed,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on a conference call with reporters Monday. “There is no dollar estimate for what is needed because there is no plan in place.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) agreed, praising federal responders and military personnel on the ground but highlighting the disparity between the size of recovery force and the scale of devastation.

“Instead of 5,000 of our men and women in uniform, there should be 50,000,” he said.

Plaskett, in an interview, cited the Army Corps of Engineers' repairs to the Virgin Islands’ potable water system as an example of how aid attempts have gone awry. Most residents on the islands live in rural areas and don’t use the water system, instead relying on cisterns to collect rainwater under their homes, Plaskett said. That means that, even with the water system repaired, many are still without access to drinking water — something she said the Army did not realize.

There are some signs of improvement. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Monday that wait times for gas are down to under an hour, compared to six or seven hours just a few days ago, and 37 percent of the island’s residents now have cell service. FEMA Administrator Brock Long, who arrived in San Juan on Monday, said he saw rush-hour traffic and people cutting lawns.

“The bottom is line is what I saw was progress being made today,” Long said. “I didn’t see anybody in a life-threatening situation at all.”

Alejandro De La Campa, the leader of the FEMA region that includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, said 65 percent of grocery stores and almost 70 percent of gas stations are open.

Despite FEMA’s assessment, power is still out on much of the island. Officials said residents in populated areas should get power back “within weeks or a couple months,” but those in more remote areas could be without power for up to 10 months.

The Army Corps of Engineers has distributed 79 generators to critical facilities, like hospitals and sewer stations, with 400 more on the way, said Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general. But most hospitals are still without power, and the fact that most of Puerto Rico’s telecommunications grid continues to be down makes it hard for federal and local authorities to know where an emergency response that could save lives is needed.

Over the weekend, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is leading the federal response in Puerto Rico, told PBS that the damage is “the worst I’ve ever seen” and said the military would be sending more resources.

Luis Fortuño, the former governor of Puerto Rico, said he’s seen a difference in San Juan since Buchanan’s appointment last week.

“As soon as the general came down, things started moving in the port,” said Fortuño, now a Partner at Steptoe and Johnson, which lobbies on federal health care funds for Puerto Rico.

Fortuño said he told Trump that the island needs more military aid and a longer waiver to the Jones Act allowing foreign ships to make deliveries to the territory during a phone call on Sept. 30.

“The president expressed his personal commitment" to see the recovery through, said Fortuño.

“The White House is already thinking of the next phase, the reconstruction phase,” Fortuño said. “I think that this time around they are thinking outside the box,” to not only restore Puerto Rico to its pre-Maria state, but devote resources to improve the territory’s infrastructure.

The Trump administration has yet to submit to Congress a supplemental funding request for FEMA to cover the costs of disaster relief, but a proposal is expected later this week and early estimates put the requested figure at $10 billion to $15 billion. The White House maintains that emergency funding for FEMA passed last month after Hurricane Harvey will suffice until mid-October.

Trump’s visit could improve his understanding of the problem, said James Norton, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security who worked on the Hurricane Katrina relief package under former President George W. Bush.

Seeing a hurricane-ravaged area firsthand can “really have an impact on your thinking,” Norton said.

“People are in a situation where they have no lights, no power, no water. They’re looking for answers from government,” he said. “I just think they’ll be wanting to know what else is coming, what other help is coming.”