Hurricane Harvey

By Charles Idelson, National Nurses United - Common Dreams, October 9, 2017

WASHINGTON - Registered nurses volunteers on the ground in Puerto Rico are warning that dire conditions, and a glacially slow federal relief effort, are threatening a growing health calamity for millions of residents, warns National Nurses United.
 
NNU’s Registered Nurse Relief Network (RNRN) sent 50 RNs as part of a 300-member deployment led by the AFL-CIO in conjunction with the Puerto Rican Federation of Labor and the San Juan Mayor’s office. They cite:

• People who have yet to receive any food, water, and other supplies from FEMA or any other agency.  
• People standing in line for hours in blistering heat waiting for desperately needed water and food, only to finally see federal disaster officials bringing paperwork “to collect data” rather than critical supplies.
• Multiple houses with roofs blown off and soaked interiors where there is dangerous black mold growing that creates respiratory distress and illness.
• A breakout of leptospirosis, a dangerous bacterial disease that has already claimed lives.
• Widespread devastation with families across the island who have seen no signs of FEMA or other federal relief officials. 
• “While we hear boasts of a great response, the reality on the ground is far different,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN, director of NNU’s RNRN program. 

“What our nurses witness daily is the harsh reality of a woefully inadequate government response and the brutal, inhumane impact on the Puerto Rican people. People are still without food and drinking water. That poses an enormous humanitarian threat in terms of disease, life, and death and who succumbs first,” Castillo said. 

“There can be no more delays. There is an extreme threat to life. The Trump Administration, FEMA, and Congress must act immediately,” Castillo said.

On the southern edge of San Juan municipality, where there has been no contact with FEMA, Red Cross or any official relief. This family has been sleeping in their roofless house on soaking wet furniture for weeks. The youngest child has (unsurprisingly) developed a rash. When RN Lucia Lopez gave the mother hydrocortisone cream, she burst into tears.

By Jake Johnson - Common Dreams, October 8, 2017

As President Donald Trump continues to come under fire for failing to deliver sufficient help to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria—which killed dozens and left millions without power and running water—nurses, doctors, engineers, and other workers affiliated with various unions including National Nurses United (NNU) and the AFL-CIO have teamed up to assist with relief and recovery efforts.

"I put out the call for help, and who listened? The unions," said Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital. 

Workers representing more than 20 unions boarded a flight to San Juan late last week "in response to the urgent need to get highly skilled workers to Puerto Rico to help people seeking medical and humanitarian assistance, as well as to help with the rebuilding effort," according to the AFL-CIO's Kenneth Quinnell.

"The nurses, doctors, electricians, engineers, carpenters and truck drivers on the flight will engage in various efforts, including helping clear road blockages, caring for hospital patients, delivering emergency supplies, and restoring power and communications," Quinnell added.

"When our union sisters and brothers see a need in our national or international community, we don't ask if we should act, we ask how," said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. "We are united in lifting up our fellow Americans."

NNU, for its part, sent a delegation of 50 volunteer registered nurses from throughout the U.S. to help provide urgent medical assistance to those in need.

"As nurses whenever there's a call and there's an ask, we go," said NNU vice president Cathy Kennedy, RN. "From the reports I've heard especially the elderly that have been without oxygen, without food or water, are at risk, everyone's at risk but particularly the children and the elderly."

In total, more than 300 union members are taking part in the joint response effort, which could be seen taking shape on social media over the weekend. 

"We use the word 'solidarity' a lot in the labor movement. The idea that when we come together, we are stronger," wrote Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. "On this relief mission, it was solidarity in the truest sense of the word. Working people united around a common purpose — to provide help for those in need."

The response of union workers to the crisis sparked by Hurricane Maria also garnered the attention of NBC News, which ran a segment Saturday that focused on the dire circumstances affecting millions and the efforts of volunteers to provide help that has not been delivered by the U.S. government.

Omar Pérez Figueroa interviewed by Ernie Gotta - Socialist Action, October 8, 2017

Soon after hurricane Irma devastated islands in the Caribbean and parts of Florida, Socialist Action reporter Ernie Gotta interviewed Omar Pérez Figueroa about the effects of the storm on Puerto Rico. Gotta followed up with Perez after hurricane Maria decimated the island. Pérez, a native of Puerto Rico, is a member of the Juventud Hostosiana, the youth group of the Hostosian National Independence Movement. He is an investigative analyst on climate and water quality and a doctoral student at the University of California Irvine School of Social Ecology.

Socialist Action: Can you discuss the situation in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria?

Oliver Pérez: The situation is chaotic right now, there is no electricity, only 25% of people have water, and approximately 88% of the cellular towers are out of power. People are dying in the hospitals, treatment such as dialysis and oxygen therapy need electricity to be provided, and the gas that is used to run the power generator is scarce. The government is saying that they have supplies, but somehow people are not receiving them. As a result, people are camping, making long lines just to get some gas.

Another issue that has gone unnoticed is the mixture between stagnant water from the floods and sewage water. In a normal rain event, manhole lids burst because of the water pressure. Now imagine how many manholes blew with the hurricane! This water mix poses a health risk to everyone that comes in contact with it; sewage water contains high levels of pathogens. Because roads are either blocked or flooded, people do not have another option than to get in contact with this polluted water.

Also, there are areas in the interior of the island where aid has not arrived. We have people writing “S.O.S.” on their roofs, hoping that someone will send aid. There are people who lost everything, unlike high-income people from Guaynabo, where President Trump visited during his trip to the island. This media circus portrayed Puerto Ricans as if they were doing just fine, rather than showing a humanitarian crisis.

SA: Can you talk about the U.S. relief response?

OP: FEMA is responding at snail’s pace. My sister told me yesterday that on the way to visit my grandmother’s house she saw houses without roofs and people sleeping out in the open. The process to obtain aid from FEMA has been exhausting. It is very complicated; you need the internet to complete the formularies. The people that I know that have been able to fill the application had done it through the phone. How come the fastest way to apply for aid is via internet and phone, when most of the island is without power and cell phone signal? Supposedly, FEMA sent people on foot to complete these forms, but they are nowhere to be found.

The U.S government has had an Army colonel named Jeffrey Hughes to oversee the aid operations in the island. This has been seen by many people as a new military occupation of the island. Yes, we need aid, we need tools and structures that can allow us to bounce back from this crisis, but we don’t need to keep perpetuating the same political system that has made us dependent on U.S. aid.

Furthermore, last week (Oct. 3) President Trump visited Puerto Rico to see first hand the consequences of Hurricane Maria. Rather than being supportive or expressing his concern for Puerto Ricans’ wellbeing, he stated that Puerto Ricans have thrown the U.S. budget “out of whack.” He went on to say that Puerto Ricans and Governor Ricardo Rosselló should be proud because only 17 people have perished in this event, which compared to Hurricane Katrina, in which the dead count went into the thousands, was “good.”

He mentioned how they have finally arrived to help us, as if Puerto Ricans have not done anything to pull themselves from this crisis. That visit showed a lack of respect and understanding of the Puerto Rico situation. Losing 17 lives is more than enough.

By Nicole Colson - Socialist Worker, October 4, 2017

DONALD TRUMP couldn't resist taking the opportunity of his visit on Tuesday to lecture the people of Puerto Rico about how grateful they should be--to him, of course--and how horrible they are for daring to suffer.

Unbelievably--or perhaps all too believably, considering who we're talking about--Trump declared that the island's 3.4 million inhabitants, who are still trying to survive without basic necessities two weeks after being hit head-on by Hurricane Maria, aren't enduring a "real catastrophe."

"Every death is a horror," Trump actually said, "but if you look at a real catastrophe like [Hurricane] Katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds of people that died and what happened here with a storm that was just totally overbearing...Sixteen people certified...You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together."

Of course, the official death toll of 16 doesn't include hundreds, probably thousands and perhaps more who haven't been counted yet because many regions remain cut off, and bodies lie in morgues without any way to identify them or enter them into government tallies.

As this article was being written, the official death toll hadn't been updated in six days--a sign, as Vox's Elizabeth Barclay pointed out, of just how severe the government collapse is at this point.

And that doesn't take into account the many more who may die in the coming days and weeks as hospitals continue to go without power and supplies, and the population is threatened with epidemics as a result of the lack of potable water and other necessities.

By Mutual Aid Disaster Relief - It's Going Down, October 3, 2017

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is organizing response teams to continually travel to Puerto Rico and surrounding areas to assist with rebuilding sustainable, modular water and energy systems to provide immediate, life-saving relief and long-term, permanent independence and autonomy of marginalized, impacted communities.

Please share our Action Network donation page and campaign Wishlist!

Email us to share your skills, knowledge,and time.
Contact us to stand in solidarity and mutual aid with Puerto Rico
as people rebuild their homes, and liberate and re-empower their communities in defiance of the United States’ colonial project of dependency, debt, and austerity.

The Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Puerto Rico Rebuilds Campaign/Campaign to Rebuild the Caribbean is a call to allies everywhere to stand in solidarity with people in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean who face the difficult and long-term journey to rebuild their homes and lives.

SOLIDARITY STEPS IN ACTION

1. Raise funds for equipment and tools needed to set up modular water treatment and solar energy systems, providing immediate relief.
2. Response teams travel to impacted communities throughout October and November, providing immediate access to clean water and electricity.
3. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network continues decentralized response efforts over the long-term, raising funds to construct and install permanent, community maintained water catchment and filtration systems as well as sustainable energy systems.

The Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network is currently raising money to purchase the necessary supplies, materials, and tools to install modular water treatment systems and solar arrays to provide needed and life-saving clean water and electricity to impacted communities.

Each individual donation helps us get closer to providing sustainable water and energy access to residents in Puerto Rico for immediate and long-term disaster relief and community autonomy. If you would like to sign up as a matching donor, please reach out to us at mutualaiddisasterrelief@gmail.com.

Currently, Puerto Rico still has no power and it is estimated that the island will not return to full power for six months, leaving 3.5 million people without electricity. The only power supply available for residents are a handful of generators, which is accompanied by a shortage of diesel fuel and gas. People are waiting in line up to six hours for fuel. Existing generators are powering essential buildings like hospitals, however, due to shortages, some hospitals have had to refuse patients and others have lost patients because there was not sufficient energy to power life-support equipment, oxygen machines, or to refrigerate some life-saving medications.

The threat to health is also increased by the lack of electricity to power vital wastewater and potable water treatment plants. Raw sewage and floodwaters can contaminate drinking sources.  The risk is exacerbated due to Puerto Rico’s already aging and leaking water system, which can result in bacteria and other contaminants leaking into the system as well.  Without electricity, water treatment plants are unable to treat and distribute clean water. It would require 2,500 generators to get the entire system operational immediately.

Approximately 60 percent of the island does not have access to clean water and 80 percent of the agriculture has been decimated, leaving millions of residents without drinking water, a stable food supply, the ability to provide sterile environments for health care, or the ability to cook, flush toilets, take showers, or grow food.

The lack of electricity has also made communication difficult with barely any functioning cell phone towers and no reception. Family and friends in diaspora are challenged with raised anxiety levels as family members on the island are unable to check in.  Rescue operations rely on satellite phones and response efforts are more difficult to coordinate.

Jael Pimentel and Yara Liceaga-Rojas interviewed by Dorian B - Socialist Worker, October 3, 2017

WHAT ARE conditions like on the ground in Puerto Rico? How severe is the humanitarian crisis?

Jael: There are many parts of the country outside the San Juan metro area that are completely without electricity, without any form of communication. Their roads are blocked and in many cases their situation is unknown.

Yara: There are massive infestations of mosquitos and rats because of the accumulation of rotting garbage. There were many animals killed during the storm, and they haven't been removed. At several cemeteries that were badly flooded, bodies have been forced from their graves by the water and are now just lying out in the open. Conditions are seriously unsanitary.

Many people are ill. The lack of air conditioning in the hospitals is leading to the spread of bacteria and bacterial infections. There are many hospitals in really bad condition, so much so that family members of patients are no longer being let in because it's unsafe.

Jael: Not only that, but people have no food. I have a cousin who waited in line for four hours. She was given three cans of spaghetti for five people.

Yara: Supermarkets are empty. Gas is being rationed out. You have to wait up to seven or eight hours in your car to get gas, only to be sold $10 to $15 of gas.

Jael: There are endless lines for everything. I really want to stress this because someone like my father, who is 85 years old, has tried to wait in lines twice already, but has had to leave because of his physical condition. He woke up at 3:30 a.m. one day to cue up for five hours to get gas. The elderly simply cannot stand in line for five hours. There are many people who are unable to access a lot of basic supplies.

HOW MUCH do we know about the loss of life so far?

By Stan Cox and Paul Cox - Green Social Thought, October 2, 2017

Donald Trump’s sadistic attacks on the people of Puerto Rico got most of the headlines, but it is colonial exploitation that created the unnatural disaster that continues to play out.

Many, including Trump, predict that the debt burden will make it extremely difficult for Puerto Rico to rebuild after Hurricane Maria. That much is true, but we should be drawing from that the logical conclusion: Maria has revealed that forgiveness of Puerto Rico’s debt is a moral necessity.

The economic vulnerability that set the territory up for an unnatural disaster unprecedented in U.S. history was a hybrid between mainland hedge-fund managers’ greed and the island colony’s political powerlessness. Writing a year before Maria, legal scholar Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan argued,

The colonial status of Puerto Rico both contributes directly to the economic crisis as well as inhibits comprehensive solutions that would address short-term concerns and long-term economic policy changes. The United Nations Special Committee on decolonization issued its annual resolution on the colonial status of Puerto Rico in early 2015, noting that the island needs to be able to make decisions in a sovereign manner to address its urgent economic and social needs, including its twelve percent unemployment rate, marginalization, and the widespread poverty of its residents. The

Committee recognized that the economic vulnerability of Puerto Rico is a direct consequence of its colonial status and that Puerto Rico’s lack of political power to affect decision-making in the United States is reflected in the policies and politics that shape and ultimately cripple the island’s economy.

Ora Bannan and other legal experts have maintained, based on the doctrine of “odious debt,” that continuing to compel Puerto Rico to repay bondholders is legally and morally indefensible, because national governments “have an obligation towards their citizens to provide their basic needs for clean water, health and education and at least not to frustrate their citizens’ attempts to meet their needs for food, clothing and shelter. The freedom of the population to pursue the meeting of these needs is a fundamental human right.”

In Puerto Rico over the past decade, the struggle to make debt payments, along with the economic decline related to that struggle, had already led to increasing poverty, a home-foreclosure epidemic, involuntary migration, and relentless contraction of public services, all well before the storm hit. According to Ora Bannan, pre-Maria Puerto Rico was spending more on debt service than on education, health, or security. Results included the shuttering of 150 schools, the gutting of health care, increased taxes, splitting of families between the island and the mainland, and increased food insecurity.

Therefore, by the time Maria came hurtling across the Atlantic, Puerto Rico stood out as a textbook illustration of disaster vulnerability. Debt service was already strangling the island. Now with an unnatural disaster still in progress, and if our nation has any shred of humanity left, we must relieve the storm’s victims of their debt burden. To expect Puerto Rico to rebuild while at the same time it’s bailing out Wall Street financiers is to condemn its residents to a permanent state of crushing hardship and impoverishment.

By Sean O'Torain - Facts For Working People, September 30, 2017

The editors of this site wish to emphasize that the IWW does takes no position on the strategy of organizing a workers' political party. Members are free to choose to follow this strategy (or not) independently of the IWW, but the IWW takes no active role in supporting or organizing any political party and chooses, instead, to build one big revolutionary union. 

Hurricanes, flooding, destruction, from Texas to Louisiana to Florida and worst of all, now in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands.. These catastrophes are destroying the lives of millions of working class people. On top of this suffering we have the Predator in Chief attacking Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz and saying the people of Puerto Rico want everything done for them. Meanwhile he plays golf. This creature in the White House thinks only of himself and related to this feeding the backward racist and tightening ideas of the people who support him. He is n a monstrous person. 

The cause of these catastrophes in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico and the other islands of the Caribbean must be identified. Sure there have been storms and hurricanes in the past. But so many and so powerful? Never.  Add to this the rising sea levels and global warming and the conclusion is inescapable. Climate change/global warming is at the root of these crises. 

Again in relation to the creature in the White House. He says climate change and global warming has been dreamt up by the Chinese government. That is what he says to his audience in the US. But Trump has a golf course in the west of Ireland. Near the sea. He is trying to get government grants there to shore up the coast line against raising sea levels. No talk of climate change and global warming there. What a liar and hypocrite. 

At the root of global warming/climate change is the mad addiction of the international capitalist class to profit. These catastrophes are not acts of some imaginary god or natural disasters as the capitalist mass media claims. They are the result of global warming/climate change and capitalism is the cause of global warming/climate change.  It is to the capitalist class and the capitalist system that we must place the blame. 

By Bill Moyers - Common Dreams, October 1, 2017

Puerto Rico is devastated. Two hurricanes plunged the island into darkness and despair. Crops perish in the fields. The landscape of ruined buildings and towns resemble Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped on it. Over three million people are desperate for food, water, electricity and shelter. 

After a slow start, the Trump Administration is now speeding up the flow of supplies to the island. A top US general has been given command of the relief efforts. And, like so many others, Yarimar Bonilla watches with a broken heart as her native Puerto Rico struggles. This noted social anthropologist—a scholar on Caribbean societies—says the hurricanes have made an already bad fiscal and economic crisis worse, and she sees darker times ahead unless major changes are made in the structure of power and in Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States.

Last night on NBC, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz made a spontaneous statement expressing her frustration with insufficient relief efforts that went viral. Before you read my interview with Yarimar Bonilla please take two minutes to watch this video. You will understand even more clearly Ms. Bonilla's explainer of what is happening in Puerto Rico.

—Bill Moyers

By Richard Heinberg - Post Carbon Institute, September 28, 2017

News reports tell of the devastation left by a direct hit from Category 4 Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans already coping with damage from Hurricane Irma, which grazed the island just days before, were slammed with an even stronger storm on September 20, bringing more than a foot of rain and maximum sustained winds of at least 140 miles per hour. There is still no electricity—and likely won’t be for weeks or months—in this U.S. territory of 3.4 million people, many of whom also lack running water. Phone and internet service is likewise gone. Nearly all of Puerto Rico’s greenery has been blown away, including trees and food crops. A major dam is leaking and threatening to give way, endangering the lives of tens of thousands. This is a huge unfolding tragedy. But it’s also an opportunity to learn lessons, and to rebuild very differently.

Climate change no doubt played a role in the disaster, as warmer water generally feeds stronger storms. This season has seen a greater number of powerful, land-falling storms than the past few years combined. Four were Category 4 or 5, and three of them made landfall in the U.S.—a unique event in modern records. Puerto Rico is also vulnerable to rising seas: since 2010, average sea levels have increased at a rate of about 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) per year. And the process is accelerating, leading to erosion that’s devastating coastal communities.

Even before the storms, Puerto Rico’s economy was in a tailspin. It depends largely on manufacturing and the service industry, notably tourism, but the prospects for both are dismal. The island’s population is shrinking as more and more people seek opportunities in the continental U.S.. Puerto Rico depends entirely on imported energy sources—including bunker oil for some of its electricity production, plus natural gas and coal. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) is a law unto itself, a monopoly that appears mismanaged (long close to bankruptcy), autocratic, and opaque. Over 80 percent of food is imported and the rate of car ownership is among the highest in the world (almost a car for each islander!).

To top it off, Puerto Rico is also in the throes of a debt crisis. The Commonwealth owes more than $70 billion to creditors, with an additional $50 billion in pension obligations. Puerto Rico’s government has been forced to dramatically cut spending and increase taxes; yet, despite these drastic measures, the situation remains bleak. In June 2015, Governor Padilla announced the Commonwealth was in a “death spiral” and that “the debt is not payable.” On August 3 of the same year, Puerto Rico defaulted on a $58 million bond payment. The Commonwealth filed for bankruptcy in May of this year after failing to raise money in capital markets.

A shrinking economy, a government unable to make debt payments, and a land vulnerable to rising seas and extreme weather: for those who are paying attention, this sounds like a premonition of global events in coming years. World debt levels have soared over the past decade as central banks have struggled to recover from the 2008 global financial crisis. Climate change is quickly moving from abstract scenarios to grim reality. World economic growth is slowing (economists obtusely call this “secular stagnation”), and is likely set to go into reverse as we hit the limits to growth that were first discussed almost a half-century ago. Could Puerto Rico’s present presage our own future?