The aftermath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma on Puerto Rico has been quite cruel. The island still suffers from lack of electricity, cell phone signals and potable water. Houses that were not totally ripped apart, had their roofs torn off allowing water, rodents and insects into homes, which bring vector borne disease and toxic mold to millions of suffering Americans. Food crops were decimated and farms destroyed. Despair and anxiety is everywhere.
Today, approximately 3 months after the hurricanes, people still live day by day. If they are lucky, they can scrape together enough money to buy fuel for their generators. The diesel that runs the generators smothers the island in a toxic mix of petro-chemicals, face masks are a must have in many areas. Even as power transmission towers get slowly repaired, the island still faces outage after outage plunging residents back into darkness, danger and misery.
Vice news does an excellent job explaining why it is so difficult to get the power back in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. This is a must watch for all Americans in order to understand the brutal reality of power restoration in the storm ravaged Caribbean.
The video notes that power poles are needed in the (climate change enhanced) natural disaster impacted states of Florida, Texas and California, as well as Puerto Rico.
I did not know that FEMA dollars can only be used for repairs, not upgrades. Since the power grid was in terrible shape before the windstorms, this regulation will not resolve any of underlying problems and needs to go ASAP.
Parts of Puerto Rico Won’t Have Power for 8 Months. What’s the Holdup?
The damage to an already outdated and poorly maintained grid was comprehensive. Lines went down, poles snapped, towers fell and substations flooded. There are 30,000 miles of electrical line in Puerto Rico, and about 63 percent of it was affected.
To underscore the scope of the work: Almost 50,000 power poles need to be repaired or replaced. Add 500 towers to that. And the towers are so heavy that helicopters cannot carry them, so they have to be installed in stages. It can take up to 10 days just to finish one.
And some of the supplies, such as the 30,000 power poles that were ordered on Oct. 6 — 16 days after the storm — are beginning to arrive only now. Some 400 miles of cable are expected to reach the island in the next two weeks, Mr. González said.