One of the most common sights following any major storm is a large number of houses with blue tarps pinned to their roofs. That was certainly true in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and in Florida after Irma rolled through. But images from Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria are almost blue-roof-free. That’s not because the hurricane didn’t leave plenty of damaged homes — with winds speeds over 150 mph when it made landfall, Maria was a monster storm that ripped shingles from homes that met even the most stringent hurricane standards.
So why are images from Puerto Rico so lacking in that post-disaster blue?
After Hurricane Maria damaged tens of thousands of homes in Puerto Rico, a newly created Florida company with an unproven record won more than $30 million in contracts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide emergency tarps and plastic sheeting for repairs.
Just as the contract to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid was awarded to a two-man firm in Montana that didn’t even have an office, FEMA awarded the contract for supplying tarps and similar post-disaster materials to the Florida firm Bronze Star.
Only neither of the brothers behind the company had the supplies they were selling, or experience in acquiring them, or knowledge of delivering them. And if the name has you wondering, neither of them actually has a Bronze Star.
“My brother and I, we are both veterans, so we just came up with a name to do business,” Kayon Jones said. “We’re not saying we have a Bronze Star or anything.”
Somehow the proposal from Bronze Star beat out eight other bids for tarps and plastic sheeting. But not a single item was delivered before FEMA finally cancelled the contracts on November 6. Which means that since September 20, homes on Puerto Rico have been picking up even more rain damage as they waited for these supplies.
Bronze Star was only created in August — at about the same time Hurricane Harvey was hitting Texas. So it had been in existence only a month when it made it’s bid for a a $30 million contract.
A FEMA spokesman, Ron Roth, said the agency’s review process was “somewhat expedited” after Hurricane Maria to respond as quickly as possible to the emergency. But he said the agency did perform its due diligence.
FEMA hasn’t revealed the details of the bid, or who evaluated the contract proposals.
“The award of a government contract to a company with absolutely no experience in producing the materials sought obviously raises very bright red flags,” said Dan Feldman, professor of public management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York.
The evaluation should have included the company’s track record and ability to execute as well as just the numbers it put down for prices. But obviously, someone “somewhat expedited” right past those points.
And, as with such much else that has happened, it’s the people on Puerto Rico who are really paying the price.