FEMA fail

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, really screwed up in Puerto Rico. A lengthy report has just been issued. Trump still seems to think he and FEMA did an outstandingly awesome job after Hurricane Maria. Ooo! Toss me some paper towels too!

FEMA was Sorely Unprepared for Puerto Rico Hurricane, Report Says

in The New York Times

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s plans for a crisis in Puerto Rico were based on a focused disaster like a tsunami, not a major hurricane devastating the whole island. The agency vastly underestimated how much food and fresh water it would need, and how hard it would be to get additional supplies to the island.

And when the killer storm did come, FEMA’s warehouse in Puerto Rico was nearly empty, its contents rushed to aid the United States Virgin Islands, which were hammered by another storm two weeks before. There was not a single tarpaulin or cot left in stock.

Those and other shortcomings are detailed in a FEMA report assessing the agency’s response to the 2017 storm season, when three major hurricanes slammed the United States in quick succession, leaving FEMA struggling to deliver food and water quickly to storm victims in Puerto Rico.

The 2017 hurricane season in the United States was the most destructive on record. According to the report, nearly five million people registered for FEMA assistance last year, exceeding the combined total from four previous major hurricanes — Rita, Wilma, Katrina and Sandy. The 2017 storms caused a total of $265 billion in damage and badly stretched FEMA’s capacity to respond.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement that the report “provides a transformative roadmap for how we respond to future catastrophic incidents.”

It took several days for the first barge carrying food and water to reach the island after the storm, and when the aid arrived, so many of the island’s truck drivers were grappling with their own storm damage that hardly any were available to move the FEMA aid out of the island’s seaports, the report says.

A week after Maria made landfall, FEMA still did not know whether half the island’s hospitals were open, the report says. Officials sent out on reconnaissance missions by helicopter could not share the information they collected because communications had collapsed. The satellite phones that FEMA had sent to the island were not meant to work in the Caribbean.

Puerto Rico has continued to struggle both to recover from the 2017 storms and prepare for the 2018 season. Nearly 10 months after Hurricane Maria, about 1,000 households on the island are still without power, and the management of the island’s government-owned electric utility, Prepa, is in turmoil. Its chief executive resigned on Wednesday after just four months in the post; by Thursday, his replacement, along with six members of the board, had also quit.

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