Dang Puerto Rico

TallTom

TallTom

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I used to have to go to Puerto Rico back in the 80s. Not gonna lie you get out of San Juan and it's a tropical Paradise. They always had hurricanes. And always seemed to have weathered them fairly well.

I actually thought about moving there after Irma? or Hugo?, whichever one demolished it's rickety infrastructure. The whole build back better approach would have rebuilt a more robust infrastructure.

Now though, holy chyt, they get completely wiped out by anything that hits it. Fiona, while not trivial, is trivial as far as storms in history there.

They are totally without power. Again. And pleading for federal aid again. And Fiona is still there as of this writing.

PR is reminding me of New Orleans now. Once was a fine place that offered a lot. Slowly bled dry by it's government.
 
Good friend of mine is a Lineman Foreman, he 'volunteered' to go to Puerto Rico to work, whatever the last big hurricane that hit about 4 years ago was.
To the tune of $35k+ a month.
He said it was very sad, that him and his crew restored power for a man in a rural area, the pole at his house was knocked down.
He told them it had been down for 6 years, from a storm. Just like here, if a storm damages anything outside your home, the power company fixes it.
Only there, the power crews extort money from the people to do the work their job pays them to do.
He couldn't pay, so the local company wouldn't fix it.
My friend and his crew said that they saw how this was common outside of the city. That they were glad they could help a few people, but were glad to leave, based on the amount of corruption they saw on several levels, while working with the government and authorities over about 3 months there.
 
sixpack577 said:
Good friend of mine is a Lineman Foreman, he 'volunteered' to go to Puerto Rico to work, whatever the last big hurricane that hit about 4 years ago was.
To the tune of $35k+ a month.
He said it was very sad, that him and his crew restored power for a man in a rural area, the pole at his house was knocked down.
He told them it had been down for 6 years, from a storm. Just like here, if a storm damages anything outside your home, the power company fixes it.
Only there, the power crews extort money from the people to do the work their job pays them to do.
He couldn't pay, so the local company wouldn't fix it.
My friend and his crew said that they saw how this was common outside of the city. That they were glad they could help a few people, but were glad to leave, based on the amount of corruption they saw on several levels, while working with the government and authorities over about 3 months there.
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PR will be 3rd World soon enough.

Hell the U.S. is already there in a few cities.

It's sad. The travel industry was willing to exploit and invest willingly inyo travel to Cuba when it opens up. But yet they won't do the same for PR.
 
I feel sorry for PR. Have several friends who have property and family there.
PR has been in trouble for a while due to those leading it. Embezzlement of federal funds from the last disaster was shown to be prevalent in many of their leaders. A lot of relief supplies literally rotted in warehouses too.
 
bigoltool said:
Alaska is getting it too. 50+ foot seas there yesterday!
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Let's see if they ask for any help from anyone. My bet is no.

They have been pretty self sufficient through a lot of extreme stuff for years.

I did a tour of the Klondike territory. Holy chyt the work ethic they had was hard to fathom when it was explained.
 
TallTom said:
I used to have to go to Puerto Rico back in the 80s. Not gonna lie you get out of San Juan and it's a tropical Paradise. They always had hurricanes. And always seemed to have weathered them fairly well.

I actually thought about moving there after Irma? or Hugo?, whichever one demolished it's rickety infrastructure. The whole build back better approach would have rebuilt a more robust infrastructure.

Now though, holy chyt, they get completely wiped out by anything that hits it. Fiona, while not trivial, is trivial as far as storms in history there.

They are totally without power. Again. And pleading for federal aid again. And Fiona is still there as of this writing.

PR is reminding me of New Orleans now. Once was a fine place that offered a lot. Slowly bled dry by it's government.
Click to expand...
The thing people don't understand about PR is how badly federal money is spent. So due to federal laws restricting Fema funds any equipment repaired or replaced had to be the same as the original. So if if the original was 50 years old you have to replace it with the same technology. Therefore this ancient tech just gets massacred constantly since it was never engineered to withstand these kind of hurricanes. And it's a bitch to replace too. Nobody makes this ancient stuff so when they need too much of it it's takes forever to get it since some factory out there has to make a special production run for this stone age crap. If they updated FEMA laws federal government would billions of dollars over the next few decades.
 
ZeePopo said:
The thing people don't understand about PR is how badly federal money is spent. So due to federal laws restricting Fema funds any equipment repaired or replaced had to be the same as the original. So if if the original was 50 years old you have to replace it with the same technology. Therefore this ancient tech just gets massacred constantly since it was never engineered to withstand these kind of hurricanes. And it's a bitch to replace too. Nobody makes this ancient stuff so when they need too much of it it's takes forever to get it since some factory out there has to make a special production run for this stone age crap. If they updated FEMA laws federal government would billions of dollars over the next few decades.
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The worst problem here is the politics
 
TallTom said:
Am so glad we get the real answer from an actual citizen that lives it

There was a certain recent president that tried to highlight this. He was boood off the stage.
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It couldn't have been the recent president that was throwing paper towels at the victims of a natural disaster like they were t shirts at a sporting event.

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DougE said:
It couldn't have been the recent president that was throwing paper towels at the victims of a natural disaster like they were t shirts at a sporting event.

View attachment 1655649
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Totally agree. He had terrible public presence. If I needed electricity and food and gas, and he was the source of that, I'd suck it up. I worked for FEMA for 2 years. In places that hated him. But they all cashed the checks he sent to them.

Meanwhile the PR government who was begging for it "for the people" we get this.

They were be treated worse than TShirts.

Read what people actually were quoted as saying. Their leaders were nowhere to be found!

It's New Orleans all over again.
 
There will come a day when these places are uninhabitable due to the rise in sea level....history has shown us that.

Almost every year our military was deployed to a place called Winnipeg due to extreme flooding which has been happening for generations due to the whole area being an ancient flood plain...people know this yet they still settle there and get flooded out, then move back only to be flooded out again...
 
Bumblebee said:
There will come a day when these places are uninhabitable due to the rise in sea level....history has shown us that.

Almost every year our military was deployed to a place called Winnipeg due to extreme flooding which has been happening for generations due to the whole area being an ancient flood plain...people know this yet they still settle there and get flooded out, then move back only to be flooded out again...
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And what they learn here, just hold out your hand, so the government helps.

I would go to the exact same cities that got flooded repeatedly. Remembering some of the same houses.

They made more $ getting flood relief than what they made in 6 months.

Yet you suggest to the state, they should be relocated.......oh heck no, these people deserve to live anywhere they want. It's inhumane to force relocation.
 
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