Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States has an area of 3,515 square miles, about 70 to 80 percent of which is hilly or mountainous. Approximately 60 percent of the population of 3.5 million lives in the four largest cities, San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, and Arecibo. Those cities are located on flat or gently sloping coastal areas. The rapid urbanization in these cities has pushed development onto surrounding steep slopes. The mountainous Cordillera Central, which forms the spine of Puerto Rico, has a cool environment due to it’s elevation (4,390 feet above sea level at it’s highest point) and receives considerable rainfall year round. This area includes the only tropical national rainforest in the United States, El Yunque, (“whose name may be attributed to either a Spanish approximation of the “aboriginal Taíno word yu-ke which means "white lands", or the word "anvil," which is yunque in Spanish”).
The University of the Caribbean identifies the types of landslides that occur on the island of Puerto Rico.
All major types of landslides occur in Puerto Rico, and all physiographic provinces of the island have landslides. Most of the Upland province and the Northern Karst province (Fig. 17), by virtue of high relief, steep slopes, and abundant rainfall, have continuing landslide problems. The drier southwestern part of Puerto Rico (Fig. 16) normally experiences landslides only during exceptionally heavy rainfalls; few landslides form there during periods of normal precipitation. The coastal plain has only localized landslide problems, predominantly along incised stream channels or where steeper inselbergs project through the younger surficial sediments.
Debris slides and debris flows—rapid downslope sliding or flowing of disrupted surficial rock and soil—are the most prevalent types of landslides in Puerto Rico. These landslides are particularly hazardous because they form with little or no warning and can move very rapidly down steep slopes. Structures at the base of such slopes are inundated or destroyed by the impact of the rapidly moving mixture of soil, rock, and water.
A common, but less abundant, type of landslide is rock fall—rapid movement by free fall, bounding, or rolling of bedrock detached from steep slopes. Rock falls are common on very steep natural slopes and especially on the numerous steep road cuts on the island. These landslides can be very damaging if they impact structures or passing automobiles. Recent major storms have triggered many rock falls of different sizes that closed roads and temporarily isolated parts of the island.
Block slides and slumps—masses of bedrock and overlying soil that move downslope either as intact blocks or as a collection of slightly disrupted blocks—are less common than debris slides and debris flows, but their effects can be catastrophic. Such was the case during the October 1985 storm, when the Mameyes district of Ponce was destroyed by a block slide that killed at least 129 people (Jibson, 1986a, in press). Block slides and slumps can disrupt large areas of the ground surface and thus lead to destruction of overlying structures and burial of structures downslope.
Earth flows—normally slow-moving masses of moderately disrupted earth that can move down even very gentle slopes—also occur in Puerto Rico. This movement commonly causes sufficient deformation of the ground surface to damage or destroy overlying structures or roads.
Dave Petley from the AGU Blog comments in a post on recently released maps of landslide impacts from the 2 wind storms in September. These maps were prepared by the USGS and they reveal the extent of the devastation to the islands infrastructure. It’s important to note that landslides are not uncommon in this area. But the amount of rainfall is key as to when one gets triggered.
From across the Atlantic, the response of the White House to the Hurricane Maria disaster in Puerto Rico looks astonishing. With little fanfare, the USGS has now started to release maps of the impacts of landslides triggered by the hurricane, created through the analysis of satellite imagery. USGS staff are past masters at this sort of mapping, which is both challenging and time-consuming. They have released the first tranche of data, for a part of northwest Puerto Rico:-
This suggests that the mapped area had some of the higher levels of rainfall, but this amount is replicated across much of the rest of the island. In turn, this suggests that similar levels of landslide damage are likely elsewhere.
Stunning drone footage of the disaster in the mountains and the many landslides that the hurricanes generated by rains from Irma and Maria.
The Trump regime does not believe in science or climate change (Climate change added jet fuel to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria). Will they utilize this information for recovery in the mountains? The Coast Guard will IMO, and prior to yesterday I would have thought FEMA would proceed as well. But Brock Long has made this personal with the mayor of San Juan just like his boss. A discouraging development for critical disaster response to avoid a humanitarian crisis.
My dear friend whose family resides in these same mountains, but in the central part of the island has heard from his family. His sister climbed one of the mountains in very early am and could connect to a cell tower to call him at that time. She tells him it is a day to day developing tragedy. A first cousin who was cleaning up in the area was exposed to water tainted with rat urine (apparently rats have become more of a nuisance then what had been expected) and is in a hospital with no power and who is in critical condition.
Courtesy of kaliope
Here’s some great agencies with aid-workers hard at work on the ground in PR right now:
Hispanic Federation
Americares
Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund
Catholic Relief Services Hurricane Relief (Caribbean-wide)
Here is a GoFundMe we can get behind as well.
To help those in the most need, celebrities and others started sending their private planes to pick up cancer patients, elderly, people needing medical care, etc. And we thought -- we can do that too! We started this effort looking for a charter plane to get our parents (who are elderly and already out of their medications), sick friends, and children out. But we soon realized that there were a lot of people who were just like our family and needed help, and there were plenty of people in the mainland that wanted to help. We paired up with a dedicated charter company who has been going above and beyond to find us a plane, and next thing you know -- we think we have an airliner! Now we just need the funding to pay to get it down to and out of Puerto Rico. Expected cost is around $100K for 100 people (so about $1K per person) for the airliner. But these are people that can't afford even that amount given everything that they just lost. Which is why we are setting up this campaign! Now you can have a direct and tangible impact in the Puerto Rico rescue efforts. This isn't donating with hopes that the money gets used to help someone. This is literally getting people that need to get out of Puerto Rico in a plane and to the mainland U.S. Help us fund this evacuation flight! Every little bit helps.
We will be prioritizing (1) people over 65, (2) people with medical needs (unfortunately charters can't take bedridden people -- folks need to be able to walk up the plane stairs), and (3) families with children.
Monday, Oct 9, 2017 · 8:15:21 PM +00:00 · Pakalolo
More donation sites worthy of contributions. Thanks for posting them bfitzinAR
DK ACT BLUE (and other) DISASTER RELIEF DONATION LINKS:
Here’s a link from Bill McKibben for an org to help Puerto Rico:
From Vetwife, Former Presidents Working for All Americans:
Another choice, from Denise Oliver Velez:
- Unidos Fund, from the Hispanic Federation (After you click the orange DONATE button on the Unidos page, you’ll see a dropdown below your name & address. You can choose to donate to hurricane relief for PR, and also to Mexican earthquake relief.)
And of course, h/t TexMex: