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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSan Juan Mayor Says 'People are Starting to Die' as Puerto Rico's Humanitarian Crisis Grows Dire
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz says Puerto Rico's humanitarian crisis is beginning to take a deadly toll on the island.
"It's life or death," San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz told CBS News Tuesday morning of the situation in the US territory. "People are starting to die already. People are really dying. I've put them in the ambulances when they're gasping for air."
All across the island, a feeling of helplessness and desperation is beginning to grip residents like Yesenia Gomez, a San Juan kitchen worker who told the Associated Press, "We're in God's hands." She spent hours searching for a cell phone signal to contact her mother in the Dominican Republic.
There is "sheer pain in peoples eyes," Cruz told the Washington Post. "They are kind of glazed. Not because of what has happened, but because of the difficulty of what will come."
Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told the Washington Post that the island is "essentially devastated. Complete destruction of the power infrastructure, severe destruction of the housing infrastructure, food and water are needed."
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-us-virgin-islands-caribbean-impacts-0
no_hypocrisy
(46,160 posts)for our colonization of a once-independent sovereign nation?
malaise
(269,157 posts)ATL Ebony
(1,097 posts)Why is Trump visiting, does he really need to see it first hand before sending in urgent emergency, life-saving assistance? I wish Mueller or Schneiderman would get his arse out of there and finish their investigation after he's gone -- he should have BEEN out in January.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)It'll take 4 days to get there. Can you imagine its crew waiting for orders? Or Twitter-follower Rump asking what she was talking about because he had no memory of his briefing? San Juan's mayor says they do have some people on the ground, who are frustrated and unable to do the jobs they came for but cannot because they lack the orders authorizing them to get to work.
Link to tweet
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)The ship has an operating crew of Military's sealift Command civilian who actually run the ship as far as seamanship goes, and they are a minimal crew when not deployed just managing things in port. The medical crew that runs the hospital and all aspects of caring for people is not assigned full time to the ship, but rather it is a secondary assignment to them and their primary duty is on shore.
Getting underway in 7 days is actually on the faster side as official Navy figures say they deploy in "5-10 days". I just looked it up and when in reduced crew status in port they have 12 civilians and 58 military assigned. At full crew to go to sea and do the job they have 61 merchant seamen and 1200+ military in the crew.
Criticism of that deployment speed is unwarranted, as it looks like the crew got underway pretty fast. I know it's easy to want to go after Trump on this but don't do so at the expense of bashing the crew of the ship who likely dropped everything and left families behind at a moments notice and took the ship from a skeleton crew to a fully ready seagoing hospital underway in a week- that's actually a dammed impressive speed to do what they did. They were not sitting on the ship just waiting for orders most were on shore doing other jobs when they got the order and had to quickly shut down everything else going on in their lives, get to the ship, get it prepared and get underway.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)where there should be none. OF COURSE the crew wasn't refusing to deploy themselves. OF COURSE they were frustrated and anxiously awaiting the orders that would allow them to fulfill their purpose in the face of great need.
Criticism of Rump's failure to order this deployment and many other orders is extremely warranted. When our disordered president finally spoke to the issue of PR, it was to tweet about what a debt-ridden, broken, aged piece of real estate it was before Maria even hit. Hope you won't feel a need to disagree when I say I take that as a very worrisome sign of what is going on in his head when he should be focused on helping 3.5 million Americans in very serious trouble.
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)Last edited Wed Sep 27, 2017, 10:15 AM - Edit history (1)
As much as I would love to bash Trump I don't see anything there.
If it takes 5-10 days for them to ramp up and sail from a reduced manning status and they sailed in 7 I don't see much room for criticism, even on Trump.
When you say the time frame for sailing was too short you can't avoid it coming of as criticism of the performance of the crew, since it was within the time frame of normal performance and a feat no other ship or crew from no other nation on earth can pull off.
malaise
(269,157 posts)waiting for fuel
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Congratulating himself on what a "great" job he was doing for PR. Six times he smirked and patted himself on the back yesterday, before waddling off to feed his face with "beautiful chocolate cake" and "two scoops." Sick.
The republican-russian agent is lying to people's faces as they are dying. Make no mistake: such lies are evil. Yet republicans are cool with all his lies, even the murderous lies such as this. That in and of itself is evil.
* republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief
malaise
(269,157 posts)Lousy form - no content
Doremus
(7,261 posts)said was in port in PR for days now giving aid. She told everyone that what they were hearing about our lack of assistance was fake news.
eShirl
(18,502 posts)like my late husband did. There were occasionally people at the dialysis center who opted to end treatment. I was told they generally keep going for about a week or two before they die.