Politics

SpaceNut · 2017-09-02 17:35:44

White House requests $7.9B for initial Harvey relief efforts At least 37 people were killed in the storm and its aftermath.

The White House says more than 436,000 households have registered for FEMA aid.

Its going to cost 20 times that amount and more before its all cleaned up again.

The request also reiterates the need for Congress to increase the government's $19.9 trillion borrowing limit by the end of this month. Republicans are signaling that they may link the unpopular debt limit increase to Harvey relief.
The request, written by Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney, also calls on Congress to re-authorize the National Flood Insurance Program, which is set to expire on Sept. 30.

Mold a serious health risk in wake of Harvey's flooding Chronic conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can be exacerbated by breathing in mold spores.

This was also a major problem with the FEMA trailers after huricanes Rita and Katrina as well.

Cleanup crews and those doing renovations should also take care to protect themselves with facemasks. Increased levels of mold can continue to grow for a year after a hurricane, Khatri said.
Both now and in the long-term, she notes it's important for people with chronic respiratory conditions to remain on their medications and take them as directed.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-02 18:10:29

Ex-FEMA official: Trump needs to tell the whole truth about Harvey not use his time before the cameras to set timelines for self-congratulation for his administration's job well done, as the President alluded to in Corpus Christi, or spend Twitter time politicking about NAFTA and tax reform.

What do you say to someone who's lost everything?
How will we rebuild our home?
How will we get to work?
How will we get the kids to school -- and is there a school to go to?

Having a realistic perspective is as much a part of recovering from a crisis as the giant to-do list that face most families.

tHERE ARE MORE DANGERS IN THE HIDING AS THE CLEANUP BEGINS. As waters recede in Houston, attention turns to chemical facilities

Coastal Houston is the site of a large concentration of chemical plants, refineries, superfund sites and fossil fuel operations. Some have suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey, releasing toxic compounds into the environment, and environmentalists, in turn, are pointing the finger at politicians and industry leaders who have sought to ax regulations.
Specifically, they're criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency for delaying a chemical plant safety rule once President Donald Trump took office. In part, the rule would have ensured first responders knew what chemicals they may come in contact with and how to handle those chemicals in an emergency response situation.
The intention was to help prevent and mitigate chemical accidents.
"The rules that were delayed were designed to reduce the risk of chemical releases," said Peter Zalzal, special projects director and lead attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. "This kind of situation underscores why we shouldn't be rolling these rules back."
Earlier this year, legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate that would repeal an EPA rule.

Mar 28, 2017 Trump signs order at the EPA to dismantle environmental protections all of which when you add them up Trump's rollback of flood protections risks further Houston-style calamity....

SpaceNut · 2017-09-03 07:40:51

As Hurricane Harvey pummeled the Gulf coast in Texas, the city of Seabrook had an edge as in years ago, the city imposed higher elevation standards for buildings that were stricter than existing federal guidelines on construction in flood-prone areas. Before leaving office, President Barack Obama sought to toughen those national rules, to bring them more in line with those in communities like Seabrook. President Donald Trump, however, revoked Obama's executive order last month.

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Floodplain experts wrote to Trump this week, urging him to rethink his reversal of Obama's order. Trump rescinded the Obama standard as part of an executive order aimed at speeding up the permitting process for federally funded infrastructure.

"As we come to the conclusion of Harvey, we have suffered some damage to our community, but not to the extent that some of our neighboring communities have. That is partly because of our (elevation) requirement,” some communities had been concerned about the cost of elevating existing buildings to comply with the new rules. But Landis said more stringent rules have paid off in Seabrook.

Sure its going to cost more to construct the home but you will get affordable insurance rather than no coverage at all. Plus the cars should also be elevated as well to control the flods damage to vehicles and pollution as well due to flood waters.

Obama’s order would have required federally funded structures to be built at one of three elevations: the level that waters would reach in a flood that had a 0.2 percent chance of occurring in a year, 2 to 3 feet above the federal requirement, or at a level to be devised based on climate science projections.

Woops magic words again....

GW Johnson · 2017-09-03 10:24:59

Because of the scale of this disaster, the state and federal relief agencies would have been completely overwhelmed without all the civilian volunteers. Those volunteers made a huge difference. Without them, the death toll would be far higher, no doubt about that.

The flood waters are receding in Houston, and according to what I heard on the TV news this morning, the drinking water system still works, and not so very many neighborhoods still lack electricity. That's great progress. Things will rapidly shift to recovery and rebuilding in Houston. Volunteers still appear to be playing a major role, although the stats reported on the TV news indicate relief money from the federals is starting to flow. Good signs, all.

It's not so good yet for Beaumont and Port Arthur. One of them is still trying to restore drinking water, and the flood waters still haven't begun to recede with any great significance yet. They're further behind the curve, having gotten rained on longer than Houston, near as I can tell. I hope the efforts seen in Houston extend to them. They need it.

We can always argue over good anti-flood rules for the future. But I think rescinding initiatives begun by Obama should be looked at for what it really is: undoing anything associated with Obama and the Democrats just because it was Obama or the Democrats, not because of anything that didn't really work. That's playing only to the far-right base for politics' sake.

And after Charlottesville, we now know who a big chunk of that far-right base really is. My parents' generation didn't sacrifice lives fighting the Nazis (and similar filth) to see America taken over by Nazis today. I am shocked and disappointed to see how widespread that evil has become in this country.

Indoctrinating people to believe in that shit is the real legacy of the real fake news, intended to split societies apart, and paralyze them politically. And there is a history of that filth being spread by the Russians in Europe, and apparently here too.

I consider that an act of war. We have been attacked. So far, we have not responded. This fake news damage has obviously been going for a while, across multiple presidencies. Somebody hasn't been paying attention to something very serious. That lack could be considered treason.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-09-03 10:34:26)

SpaceNut · 2017-09-04 17:32:32

The death toll from Harvey rises to at least 60 deaths confirmed in 11 counties across south Texas happened when people were caught in quickly rising floodwaters or lost control on water-logged roads. The county emergency management departments are including people in their storm-related death totals who died from indirect complications of Harvey. Several elderly people in a handful of counties were reported as Harvey-related deaths when medical equipment such as oxygen tanks lost power.

Port Authur
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Harvey slammed into Texas on Aug. 25 as a Category 4 hurricane, but brought the worst flooding to Houston and other areas as a tropical storm. The rain totaled nearly 52 inches (1.3 meters) in some spots.

Strange but true as Coca-Cola lets men steal water in flooded Texas city warehouse on the northern edge of Beaumont.

“I have no idea when we got here,” said Zang, president of the Hovercraft Unlimited company, who drove from his home in Rockport, Illinois, with two hovercraft to help rescue hurricane victims.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-04 17:57:46

post 1010 and again in 1012 I meantioned that the cards are against the land owner and making repairs of there property if there is no money from the insurers. Some will argue that they can move.
How Washington Made Harvey Worse. Barack Obama tried to change that a bit, ordering federal agencies to account for rising seas and other flood risks when permitting infrastructure projects.

Higher Ground findings in July 1998, to try to build a national case for reform. A federal insurance program made Harvey far more costly—and Congress could have known it was coming.

Nearly two decades before the storm's historic assault on homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast of Texas this week, the National Wildlife Federation released a groundbreaking report about the United States government’s dysfunctional flood insurance program, demonstrating how it was making catastrophes worse by encouraging Americans to build and rebuild in flood-prone areas. The report, titled “Higher Ground,” crunched federal data to show that just 2 percent of the program’s insured properties were receiving 40 percent of its damage claims. The most egregious example was a home that had flooded 16 times in 18 years, netting its owners more than $800,000 even though it was valued at less than $115,000.
Created in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program was actually supposed to help prevent risky development. Now Congress must reauthorize the program before it expires on September 30, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed several reforms to rein it in..

Meantioned earlier in other posts were the toxic superfund sites that the EPA is in charge of.
Toxic waste sites flooded in Houston area

The Highlands Acid Pit site near Chandler's home was filled in the 1950s with toxic sludge and sulfuric acid from oil and gas operations. Though 22,000 cubic yards of hazardous waste and soil were excavated from the acid pits in the 1980s, the site is still considered a potential threat to groundwater, and the EPA maintains monitoring wells there.

EPA said it had reviewed aerial imagery confirming that 13 of the 41 Superfund sites in Texas were flooded by Harvey and were "experiencing possible damage" due to the storm.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-07 19:10:23

I hope this ruling will help kbd512 get the rest of his family here and reunited with them.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the country under its revised travel ban.
A three-judge panel decided that grandparents, cousins and similarly close extended family relationships of people in the U.S. shouldn't be prevented from coming to the country. The court also said refugees already accepted by a resettlement agency shouldn't be banned. The appeals court decision upholds a decision from a district court judge in Hawaii, who said the administration's view was too narrow.

RobertDyck · 2017-09-09 10:13:38

A Mars Society member from Canada, originally from my city, posted on Facebook that she recently bought a house in Melbourne Florida. I knew she got a job in the US, but forgot she moved to Florida. She's an aerospace engineer, doing engineering design work directly on small aircraft. She had been designing tooling for manufacturing equipment for interior components of large airliners. It's good to be working directly on aircraft. Janyce Wynter posted that her house is missing storm shutters, and she hasn't had time to "put that in order". Let's hope she's Ok. Hurricane Irene is now category 5 and larger than Andrew. It's stalled over Cuba as it's about to turn north toward Florida. NOAA expects the eye will move up the west cost of Florida, but it's so big it'll cover the Gulf and Atlantic coasts at the same time.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-10 18:43:44

With all the racial hate and such I thought that a map from ancestry would be eye opening...

SpaceNut · 2017-09-11 19:22:11

Director of the NSA, Admiral Mike Rogers, has admitted in a private town-hall-style meeting of NSA staffing that Donald Trump did, in fact, collude with the Russians. Months ago it was reported that there was a FISA surveillance warrant on Carter Page, dating back to at least the summer of 2016, which would have been right in the middle of the time he worked for the Donald Trump campaign.

The surveillance on Carter Page actually goes back much further than originally thought. It goes all the way back to 2014. This means that every word of Page’s remote communications with Donald Trump and the campaign have likely been recorded.

kbd512 · 2017-09-12 06:17:00

SpaceNut,

Some of us have been a little busy doing that "work that Americans won't do" (according to GW). Maybe some of us just do work that regressive leftists won't do. Apparently, that's anything that doesn't involve destroying your own community. I may write software for a living during the day, but I have a bucket full of tools and my arms and legs aren't so broken that I can't get off my rear end to use them.

We've taken all the drywall out, pulled all the nails from the studs, stripped all the wood and laminate floors down to bare concrete, and set the materials in front yards for removal. Apparently our government is in charge of the disposal effort, which would explain why it still hasn't been done yet. The tile floors were generally undamaged, just so everyone knows what type of flooring material they should use to minimize maintenance and repair work in the event of flooding.

Since my wife's relatives were responsible homeowners, they purchased flood insurance. FEMA hasn't paid their claims yet, but I understand why they've been overwhelmed as a result of the magnitude of the destruction and now we have a second disaster to clean up in Florida. The insurance companies have been a little faster than FEMA at providing assistance, but that's their business. I saw house after house after house where the residents had to do the exact same thing we did to the houses of my wife's relatives. The Army Corps of Engineers is not real popular where her relatives live, but I still think the Corps did the right thing because if the dams and levees broke, the flooding would've been much worse than it was for everyone involved.

The water came within 15 feet of our doorstep and then stopped. We had some minor damage in our kitchen caused by a roof leak, but I can repair that myself for nominal cost after more serious problems with the homes of my relatives and neighbors have been addressed. A house is a bottomless money pit, much like a boat or an airplane. I should've invested in Estwing and DeWalt. I'm making them rich right now.

I can tell you that drywall, plywood, and wood, in general, are crappy building materials when flooding is an issue, as it is here, but they are cheap and easy to repair or replace. The labor may be expensive, even if it's labor from illegal immigrants, but I don't charge anyone for my labor and I was born in the US.

The Churches that the regressive leftists despise were the only ones I saw out there helping anyone clean up. I never saw any youth groups wearing antifa or blm T-shirts helping their neighbors clean up, although street thugs aren't very popular around here, so maybe that's why. A Mormon youth group stopped by for an hour and helped us strip flooring as they made their rounds through the neighborhood. In any event, it's pretty easy to see who the real selfless contributors to society are. They have real work to do and don't have time to protest every little thing their government does that they don't agree with.

If the illegal immigrants who come here want to pay the taxes they owe, learn to speak English, and integrate into American society, then I have no problem whatsoever with that. If they want to recreate the hell hole they ran away from, then they can go back to their hell holes. Anyone who has a problem with the way we do things here is welcome to leave. No one will stop them. Anyone who tries to do that in commie utopia already knows what will happen.

In my absence, enjoy the echo chamber of self-deception, empty platitude, and morally bankrupt ideology. Blame our President for everything that's wrong with the world. It's a lot easier than looking in the mirror. On that note, it's time for me to do it all over again. L8r, g8r.

GW Johnson · 2017-09-12 14:32:09

Kbd512:

My point many times has been: all ideologies are bankrupt. Not just some of them. All of them.

As for work, I live on a farm outside Waco a ways. Yeah, I do the work out here that few else want to do. I know exactly what that stuff is.

What you say about leftist academics not wanting to do that kind of work is quite true. But, I also see the rich right-wingers also unwilling to get dirt under their fingernails, too. It cuts both ways. And that proves my point about bankrupt ideologies.

I hope the cleanup and recovery is going well for you. From what you say, it seems to be. A house is always a bottomless money pit, even in good times. I know. But you are right about it being much worse in bad times, and that we use the wrong materials, especially for flood risk zones.

Zoning may be more important than materials, when it comes to flood-risk zones. Something to think about.

Anyhow, keep us appraised on progress. We all wish you the best.

GW

SpaceNut · 2017-09-12 18:50:23

This is really a dumb thing to be doing... More than 50 arrested for looting in Miami during Irma: police

Miami area police arrested more than 50 suspected looters during Hurricane Irma, including 26 people who were accused of breaking into a single Wal-Mart store. Among others suspected of looting were six men arrested on Monday and accused of breaking into stores at the Midtown Miami shopping complex, near the fashionable Wynwood district, before making off with merchandise that included shoes, bags and laptops.
The looting attempts spanned the city, said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, from the well-heeled Brickell and downtown neighborhoods to the low-income Liberty City and Little Haiti areas. He said police will stay vigilant as the cleanup goes on.
"I said we would not tolerate criminal activity or looting or anybody who takes advantage of our residents," Deputy Chief of Police Luis Cabrera said at a news conference. "I was not joking."

Law choosing to save life.. Ahead Of Hurricane Irma, Miami Detained Homeless People Against Their Will Authorities took the rare and controversial step to protect some people from the storm.

The Baker Act ― the informal name given to Florida’s Mental Health Act of 1971 ― allows police and government officials to involuntarily detain individuals who may have a mental illness or could pose a significant threat to themselves or others. The law requires “clear and convincing evidence” that individuals detained under it are in danger.
Miami-Dade police ultimately used the Baker Act to arrest six people in the days before Irma began to batter the south Florida coast Saturday night and into Sunday morning, Book told HuffPost. Twelve others, he said, were in handcuffs before ultimately agreeing to go willingly to one of the 42 shelters the county had opened to house Irma evacuees.
In Miami, the six individuals arrested under the Baker Act were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital for evaluations, Book said. The law allows them to remain in custody for 72 hours, while any further detention would require a court order in most circumstances.
Miami-Dade County had more than 1,100 people sleeping on the streets in August, the Homeless Trust found as part of annual count of the city’s homeless population, meaning many people likely remained on the streets throughout the storm.
“Were there 600 left on the streets? I don’t know,” Book said. “But there were a lot we left behind, a lot we couldn’t get to or just ran out of time.”

This seems stranger than fiction but Florida Pizza Hut Takes Heat For Threatening Workers Fleeing Irma; “You guys are closed on Christmas, but sending delivery drivers to their death for a hurricane?” one Twitter user responded.

one of its franchises in Florida threatened to punish employees who wanted to evacuate as Hurricane Irma approached.
A photo of a memo from the manager at a Jacksonville location began circulating on Twitter on Sunday. The notice tells workers that they have a “responsibility and commitment” to the community, and that those who planned to evacuate would only get a 24-hour “grace period” before the storm “to not be scheduled.”
“In the event of an evacuation, you MUST return within 72 HOURS,” the memo said in bold type.
“You cannot evacuate Friday for a Tuesday storm event!” “Failure to show for these shifts, regardless of reason, will be considered a no call/no show and documentation will be issued.”

Why So Many People Don’t ‘Just Leave’ When A Major Hurricane Hits It has nothing to do with being lazy or negligent.

A flight out of nearby Tampa to Philadelphia, where Berberian has family, would cost her over $1,000, she said. (She noted that she has booked last-minute tickets to Philly in the past that cost as little as $200.) Last-minute tickets out of the state were running as high as $3,000, the Miami Herald reported. Historic storm or not, many Floridians have no choice but to stay put when the winds rise.
Fourteen percent of the people who remained in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina had a physical disability. Fifty-five percent of them didn’t have access to a car or another way to leave. And 68 percent didn’t have either money in the bank or a useable credit card, Pacific Standard Magazine reported in 2015.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-13 18:33:32

The real face of what it is to be american
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Trump pledged to give a million for aid and he is American but this billionaire immigrant who just made one of the largest donations to Hurricane Harvey relief

Hoang is perhaps the most financially successful Vietnamese to immigrate to America in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, a story owed to both luck and force of will.

Yes he came ove legally but there were just as many that did not as part of the refugees...

2005, Hoang returned to Vietnam for the first time since fleeing, building 5,000 homes as well as roads, bridges, temples, and schools,

Mexico Ignores Trump's Border Wall Shakedown, Offers Aid to Texas but after the huricane and earthquake things have changed as a result of them as Mexico rescinds offer to help Harvey relief efforts after governor of Texas Accept Mexican Offer of Hurricane Harvey Relief they also had made the choice. Since Trump Still Hasn't Responded To Mexico's Offer Of Hurricane relief. Mr Trump failed to offer condolences to the country after the earthquake and the separate hurricane, sparking heavy condemnation from around the world they are refocusing there much needed relief efforts back to there own people.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-17 09:07:52

Spreading political propaganda aka Making false statements is a crime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_false_statements

All False statements involving Donald Trump

A non vote is not a viable option either as this is what the electoral college is all about making sure that your vote counts.

GW Johnson · 2017-09-17 10:39:27

Kbd512:

I hope your recovery tasks are going well.

Your conservative glasses are too tinted. They blind you to what is actually said or written, especially in this rather contentious thread. Like so many other Trump supporters, you only see the world as black or white: Trump supporter or Trump hater. The real world is far more diverse than that.

Yes, Spacenut is clearly a supporter of Democratic party policies and agendas, and UNLIKE what you say, there is nothing wrong with that! There are no new ideas to try if there is no diversity of belief and opinion. Regimentation is when everybody looks and sounds alike. That is NOT living free.

I on the other hand, am an independent, and a rather fierce one at that. And you do seem unable to recognize that. Not supporting Trump (because he appears to me to be a totally-incompetent buffoon) DOES NOT make me a Democrat or a Hillary Clinton supporter. I voted against him by voting for her, not to support her, but only as the very-slightly-lesser of two very great evils (as they appeared to me). Our 3rd parties are not credible at this time, which left me no other viable choice.

To me, as best I can tell, both of the major parties' primaries were deliberately rigged to give us such a terrible choice. Clinton was the only Democrat a bad Republican choice like Trump could possibly beat. And he did in the electoral college. Trump was the only Republican a bad Democrat choice like Clinton could possibly beat, and she did in the popular vote. I find NO COINCIDENCE in that, given the takeover of our government by the gigantic financial interests in recent decades. Bread-and-circuses diversion it was.

As for the electoral college, I actually favor keeping it, as the prime means to stop NYC and LA from electing our presidents from now on. But I do see merit to ending the winner-take-all approach to assigning the electoral votes. Something more approaching proportionality would pretty much end the increasingly-frequent disparities between electoral and popular results. And we don't need a Constitutional amendment to do that: it's a state-by-state decision. Says so in the Constitution.

What you said about handling classified information is very true, and I quite agree with you, as far as your contention goes. Clinton did indeed break the law. What you left out was the painfully obvious double standard applied in DC to enforcing that very law! If you or I had done what she (or any of the rest of the DC crowd) did with classified data, marked or not, we'd still be in jail today. For me that's saying something: I last had a clearance and handled such data 23 years ago.

The politicians and officials of all stripes in DC get away with not only mishandling classified data, but with overtly leaking it to the public. They get away with this crime every damned day. Double standard! THAT "swamp" really does need to be drained! Among several others, but that one is overtly criminal!

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-09-17 12:19:15)

SpaceNut · 2017-09-18 19:23:26

Harvard Study Confirms The Media Tore Down Clinton, Built Up Trump And Sanders

Clinton Is No Media Darling; Hillary Clinton has received disproportionately negative press during the 2016 presidential race.

The checkout lines had these fictional headlines for the subliminal message...

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Pravda on the Checkout Line; First Donald Trump got an endorsement from the tabloids. Now he’s getting a mouthpiece.

Tabloid’s Donald Trump lands endorsement of The National Enquirer

SpaceNut · 2017-09-18 20:23:54

Something that is very much overlooked in all of this is being looked at now as Dems fear lasting damage from Clinton-Sanders fight

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Its still continuing even now....

Terraformer · 2017-09-19 07:18:33

The checkout lines had these fictional headlines for the subliminal message...

SpaceNut, almost all of those are from the National Enquirer. That's hardly a representative sample of the media.

I voted for G. Johnson. He didn't get in, and Clinton won New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) by a mere 1700 votes, so I almost regretted my choice. Fortunately, Trump managed to win. Not my first choice - that would be Rand Paul) - but better than the alternative. Which isn't saying much. At this point, though, I see it as playing for time.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-19 16:14:19

Will get some of the others into a post later...

Something that we have hit on is how long it takes to do anything when it comes to the governement agencies that should be processing applications of any kind fast such as the VA, Visa's, Citizenship, retirement from civil service, Disability, ect....

Disability backlog tops 1 million; thousands die on waitlist nearly two years — longer than some of them will live.

The same will hold true of the appeals processes as well....

About 10.5 million people get disability benefits from Social Security. An additional 8 million get disability benefits from Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for poor people who don't qualify for Social Security. The disability programs are much smaller than Social Security's giant retirement program. Still, the agency paid out $197 billion in disability payments last year.
Recipients won't get rich as the average benefit is $1,037 a month — too small to lift a family of two out of poverty.

We must be still using DOS programs on a 4bit computer still..

SpaceNut · 2017-09-19 16:36:06

Some of these you may feel are offensive and I apologize for this in advance. There are many of these tabloid papers that grace the ailse of many a store front to which some cut both ways and other seem more biased in one or the other direction.

philadelphia%20daily%20news%20donald%20trump.jpg

Hillary+and+Huma+GLOBE.jpg

dn%20trump.jpg

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These are what has programmed some americans into there choice while other looked depper beyond the fake news that they presented.

SpaceNut · 2017-09-26 18:23:34

Those that have chosen to work in the WH have after a short period of time done this as well. DEA Chief Chuck Rosenberg Resigns After Criticizing Trump Remarks on Police Conduct

This time for President Donald Trump appeared to have "condoned police misconduct."
"We have an obligation to speak out when something is wrong." He listed "core values" that he said were fundamental to the agency: "Rule of Law, Respect and Compassion, Service, Devotion, Integrity, [and] Accountability."
"This is how we conduct ourselves. This is how we treat those whom we encounter in our work: victims, witnesses, subjects, and defendants. This is who we are."

To uphold the law not break it in order to enforce it.

Shifting to the huricane responses...
Harvey saw tromendous out pouring of help to not only rescue but to respond after the storm had passed.
Irma while it did its damage was less of a rescue mission and more of a cleanup but power was an issue for the elderly that were not protected or moved before the storm.
Maria was damaging to the islands and the response seems to not even exist at all or is just very slow.

Trump to visit Puerto Rico amid criticism of storm response

Trump told reporters at the White House, signalling that October 3 was the first date he could go without interfering with recovery efforts.

"People are really dying," the mayor of the city of nearly 400,000 people told CBS News. "There are people that have had no food and no water for 14 days."

Thats slow for sure for getting these people help.

kbd512 · 2017-09-27 10:57:55

Aid was already staged on Puerto Rico before the hurricane hit, but the devastation there was truly catastrophic. There are thousands of FEMA and US military personnel there. The US federal government already waived cleanup and infrastructure repair costs. DOE and multiple US states have sent their people there to restore the power grid. Their harbors are so messed up that only shallow draft cargo barges can make entry and not run aground. Their main airport still has damaged runways and priority has been given to airliners evacuating people from the island. The US military's vertical lift assets are designed to deliver small items of nominal tonnage for use in combat. In other words, all bad news.

Puerto Rico is about 500 miles or so from anything not damaged or destroyed by the previous hurricane, which makes getting there that much more difficult. Cutting funding to our military has contributed mightily to this humanitarian disaster. Between the North Korea mess President Trump inherited from our last two "nation builders" and the resources expended on the two previous hurricanes, the remnants of US military air and naval power in CONUS have tapped what little they had left. Most of our aircraft and ships are affected by severe parts shortages. We needed funding to pay for the Democrat's health care disaster. Liberal regressives always want to cut funding to our military, then whine and cry foul when the military doesn't have the resources to take care of the problems they created.

In any event, it's time to recall the bulk of our military to America to serve Americans. The Europeans and Asians need to learn to live with their neighbors, spend money on their defense as they see fit, and live with the consequences of their decision making without relying upon the US to save them from their enemies when their appeasement strategies fail.

Since they're all gone now, I guess those "renewable" energy sources didn't work so well in hurricane force winds. Fossil fuels work well when supply is unrestricted, but that's something that can never be relied upon for anyone living on a tiny island. The molten salt nuclear reactors are the obvious answer for those of us who know how to count, but basic math is a novelty to liberal regressives.

GW Johnson · 2017-09-27 22:21:30

As for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, yes, FEMA and some troops were there quickly, but that effort is so very clearly outclassed by the scale of the destruction as to be ludicrously insufficient. The hurricane itself was an unusually slow-moving disaster, of a size relative to the islands, that 100% destruction was completely predictable days in advance.

The US military has a history of responding when so ordered to these kinds of disasters by sending 10's of thousands of rescue and recovery troops, and thousands of tons of equipment, usually in a small carrier task force, or task forces. Those carriers have 8 nuke power plants in their bellies, and can power entire cities far larger than San Juan, and they make drinking water by vacuum flash distillation in quantities far larger than needed by a crew of 5000 per ship. And they can feed masses of people who lack food.

Don't kid yourself, about 5000-10,000 Seabees ashore as the winds died with their heavy equipment could have restored every damned power pole all over the entire island in the week that this has gone unaddressed outside the city limits of San Juan. And not adequately addressed inside those limits.

The US military is just not deterred from making a landing without a functioning harbor. They've had lots of practice since WW2 doing exactly that. A damaged harbor is no excuse not to have supplied the aid.

Those ships, men, and materiel should have been moving days before the storm hit, and should have been arriving as the winds died. Yet they were not! And still aren't, except for one hospital ship still at least a week away from arrival (plus I heard today the 101st airborne is being sent), because it has yet to leave port as of today. Point is, what is truly needed is still not there, and most of it hasn't yet even sailed or taken off.

You need to ask yourself "why?", and you will NOT like the answer!

They were/are not in such motion, because it is the US military, and the Commander-in-Chief did not order it. He gives the order, they go. They don't go without orders, that is just not how the military normally works.

That incompetent buffoon that we have for a Commander-in-Chief was, and still is, totally ignorant and uncomprehending of the true nature of what happened or what is really needed to address it. He has botched this disaster response far worse than "W" botched Katrina. There is just no excuse for that; it is utterly egregious dereliction of duty on his part.

We are now facing an imminent tactical-scale nuclear war in Korea. That same egregiously ignorant and incompetent buffoon has his finger on the nuclear trigger. The bulk of his tweets are about the NFL, not on disaster relief or this looming war. That tells you what he really thinks about. Sweet dreams!

We may die before next week ends, as our President leads us into and through the looming war. At least I can die happy knowing I did NOT vote for this abortion.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-09-27 22:45:36)

kbd512 · 2017-09-28 03:52:24

GW,

Nobody predicted that Hurricane Harvey would dump trillions of gallons of water on Houston, but it did. You seem to believe that our weather guessers are clairvoyant or know more than what exists in recorded history or their SWAG computer models. They're not and never have been. Your hindsight on this matter is just that.

Your assertions about what the US military typically does is either based on pure ignorance about recent disaster responses or an outdated notion of what was possible when our military was far larger and better funded than it is today. The total number of Seabees in the US military is 13,815 according to Wikipedia. The actual numbers are available on US Navy websites if you want to use the US Navy as the source. Your contention that we could have two thirds of them, including their tools and equipment, deployed to one spot on the globe in a week is sophomoric at best. We've already deployed more people to Puerto Rico than the number actually deployed to Houston after Hurricane Harvey and Houston had a functional airport for them to land at.

I actually served aboard USS Carl Vinson and USS John C. Stennis. It was reported two years ago that Carl Vinson could produce 400,000 gallons of fresh water per day. What the media didn't report, because they're as clueless as you are about what our military equipment can and cannot do, is that that is only possible when there's enough water beneath the keel that's not loaded with the silt and debris that major storms stir up. Once the ship makes the water, then it has to be delivered to where it's needed. It's a lot easier to do that at the pier than it is offshore. I guess that's just a minor detail.

If 9 of the 11 Nimitz or Ford carriers in our fleet were deployed to Puerto Rico, the water was reasonably clear of debris, and we saved one gallon per day for each of the crew to drink so they didn't die from dehydration, then we could provide a little over a gallon of potable water for each of the island's inhabitants per day. Only 5 or 6 of the 11 are functional ships at any given time, as in capable of being sailed somewhere. The rest are in port for repairs and refurbishment. That's just more basic math for those who can't separate their emotions from reality.

If "ground truth", as you refer to it as, was that we only had half of our ships and aircraft available for use, that'd be awesome news. Unfortunately, sequestration all but grounded US military aviation and reduced the number of seaworthy ships. Towards the end of former President Obama's term in office, the US military could simply fly about 1/3rd of its aircraft and to do that they cannibalized parts from down aircraft and the bone yard. The USAF has about 380 C-130's in service and maybe 1/3rd can fly. The C-130's can deliver a maximum payload of about 33t. As they break them from actually flying them, the spare parts may not be available because the money to buy the spare parts may not exist. The C-17's and C-5's can't land on damaged runways or runways in continuous use for evacuations. My understanding is that as of today or yesterday, our C-17's have restarted operations in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands because the runways are now available for use.

You don't know bean dip about amphibious operations and apparently can't be bothered to read the news, either. If you had read the news, then you'd know that we are landing supplies using an amphibious ship and its helicopters. You'd also know that Puerto Rico isn't the only place we've deployed our people to in the Caribbean because Irma and Maria did a number on a lot of islands there.

Since I've actually participated in one of these shore relief operations, albeit in East Timor, I can relate that it doesn't "happen" in a week. There are already more than 15K people on the ground in Puerto Rico from CONUS. A month is far more realistic time frame for sending tens of thousands of personnel to an island.

The government may have organized relief efforts here in Texas, but the people who live in Texas and Louisiana did the overwhelming majority of the work. That is typical and there's nothing wrong with that. The same will be true in Puerto Rico. All the king's horses and all the king's men are insignificant compared to all the king's peons when the task is to put a country back together again.

You may believe President Trump is a buffoon because you don't like him, but your commentary here clearly demonstrates your understanding of these matters is no better than his. Your drama queen commentary about being dead before the end of next week is more senseless hysteria over things neither you nor I know anything about. If nuclear weapons were such a bad thing for the wrong person to have, then maybe the people from your parents generation should've given a little more thought to how they might be used. I guess they were "great" because we were all taught that they were. They were hard workers, the overwhelming majority of them were honest and good-natured, else we'd not be here, but they seldom thought further down the road than their immediate existence. Tomorrow came and, well, here we are.

I wish demonstrating the ability to count was a requirement to vote, but that would exclude all liberals and somehow be racist / sexist / homophobic / xenophobic. People in hell probably wish they had water, too. That doesn't mean they'll get it. I'm from the party of basic math, where the numbers don't care about your feelings and military operations are best left to those who have actually participated and have some slight clue about what's involved. Running your mouth in the military doesn't earn you a participation trophy, either, unless you're also running the military's PR campaign.

As reported by CNN, there are thousands of shipping containers full of food / water / fuel / cars / medical supplies sitting in the Port of San Juan. Only 1 in 5 of their truck drivers decided to show up for work. Either their truck driver population was completely decimated or they won't get off their butts and walk to work. After Uncle Sam gives you all the tools to do your job, he still expects you to apply a healthy amount of elbow grease to get the job done. I guess someone in the government here was naive enough to think that the people there would go out and fetch the supplies we delivered to their port.

After Hurricane Ike hit, I dragged every damned limb and tree on our block out of the street so ambulances could use our street. Everyone else watched me do it from the sidewalk. It took about an hour. One of my neighbors finally had the "bright idea" of helping me as I dragged the last and heaviest tree out of the street. Following that experience, I bought a good saw. Years later, a giant tree branch fell in the street from a tree in the apartment complex across the street from our new house, effectively blocking our street. Once again, people passed by and watched, but nobody helped. Thankfully, none was needed. The point is, sometimes you need to get off your butt and solve your own problems.

I've read enough President Trump criticism galore that demonstrates utter ignorance about current events to waste any more time on this subject. You're a pilot, an engineer, a handy man, and you have a plane. If you want to do something useful for other people using whatever time you have left, then go to Puerto Rico, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. Ranting won't fix anything and relying upon the government to solve all of life's problems is futile and stupid. I can't believe I have to tell a farm boy this, especially at your age.

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