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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Sadly, we can expect to see more of this into the future.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/puerto-rico-fa....

> The territory's $73 billion debt crisis has left agencies like the state power company broke. It abandoned most basic maintenance in recent years, leaving the island subject to regular blackouts.

The Federal government can provide disaster relief (and should have done a better job here), but it's job isn't to rebuild local infrastructure (especially infrastructure that was already marginal due to decades of neglect). In that sense, Puerto Rico isn't different from Illinois, Detroit, Flint, or numerous other places where decades of mismanagement have hollowed out the resources of the local government. If a major disaster hit Detroit, I think you'd be surprised at how long it would take to recover.

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Point taken, but the article wasn't talking about "rebuilding local infrastructure", or long-term recovery. It was specifically talking about people dying, and in danger of dying, right now - for the lack of easily deployable (in the timespan since the hurricane - being as this is, you know, the richest country in the world) replacement "infrastructure" like air conditioners and gas-powered generators.

While their country's Executive Branch not only shows no signs of taking their plight seriously, but goes out of its way to make spiteful comments about it.

It's weird that when I read the article I form a picture of an immense response of very determined, brave, well funded, well trained, responsive professionals out there saving lives in a post-apocalyptic environment.

But your takeaway was that this "shows no signs of taking their plight seriously"? I honestly do not get it. Did we read the same article?

Did you read about Dr. Melissa Stein leading the DMAT team? About Commander Thorp responding to the false report of a disaster at a nearby hospital? About the conditions they are working in?

"In telling team members coming here we tell them it's going to be an extremely austere environment," she says.

No power, no air conditioning, no local water, no local food, no Internet and very limited communication. Hurricane Maria falls somewhere between Hurricane Harvey in Houston — where teams stayed in a hotel — and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, where they created a field hospital in Port-au-Prince and slept outside.

This is a island with 3.4 million people which won't have power restored for 4-6 months. From what I'm reading we have seen an overwhelming Federal response starts days before landfall.

No signs of taking their plight seriously....

We have very different ideas about what "immense response" means.

NYT reports FEMA is spending $200 million per day. Whitehouse has requested additional $29 Billion on top of the previous $15 Billion (which is still being being spent, now mainly on Maria recovery).

Then we have lower level efforts like the FCC approving $77 million in aid to restore communications.

And every one of the brave professionals deployed there will have stories like Dr. Stein's in the OP.

GDP of Peurto Rico is ~$100 billion, by comparison.

What the United States is doing for the people of Peurto Rico is exactly the extraordinary compassion I love to see from my country. I think people are blinded by politics on this one.

This isn't about Trump. America is responding to Americans in need, and I think we can actually be proud of the response. I'm not saying it has been perfect, but it certainly is immense.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/what-hap...

This is a reasonably fair article although I want to make a couple key points.

The comparison point of the Haiti earthquake Makes No Sense! Deaths in Haiti we're maybe 230,000. Deaths in Peurto Rico are < 100.

Troops Deployed comparisons make no sense! Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. It's GDP is $8 billion for 8 million people vs $100 Billion for 3.5 million people in PR. Peurto Ricans are 28x more productive per capita which has huge implications across the board for the level of response required. But it's not unfair to consider the average Peurto Rican is 28x more able to prepare, endure, and contribute to recovery efforts than the average Haitian.

Also Peuro Rico has 10,000 local US National Guard which are not being counted in Atlantics figures. That means actual US troops in PR are roughly equivalent to Haiti deployment actually.

Other reports I've read are that USMS Comfort did not initially deploy because PR locals wanted field hospitals not ship-based. Not because the Federal gov decided themselves not to send it.

And finally - to lead with "Almost two weeks after the storm abated, most of the island’s residents still lack access to electricity and clean water." First of all it will be months before most residents have power, mostly because the pre-existing state of their grid. I've read it needs to be rebuilt entirely. Second, clearly there is access to potable water as you can't live this long without it, and NYT reports as of yesterday Oct 4 a total of 34 deaths attributed to Maria including 15 "indirect" deaths which occurred after the storm passed.

Apologize for the spelling error - for some reason my phone is autocorrecting Puerto Rico to Peurto Rico. Embarrassing :-(

There is a robust federal response. It's also not enough to meet the challenge. Both things can be true.

Apparently the response in Haiti was faster and larger [1] And yet, people forget that the response in Haiti was screwed up too.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-responded-t...

We are spending $200 million per day. NYT reports that 19 people died during the storm and 14 people have died since "indirectly" from the storm.

You claim what we are doing is "not enough to meet the challenge". By what metric? It was a "catastrophic event" which will take months to rebuild. It's been about two weeks, and a dozen people have died. It seems like the immediate challenge has been well and fully met. The long term challenge is already shaping up with Trump statements like "wipe out the debt".

By comparison deaths in Haiti were about 200,000. Please let that sink in when MSM tries to make the comparison.

One of the things we learned from Haiti is the deploy everything now mentality is counter-productive. You get a baseline then you assess, assess, assess and then figure out how to send the right resources that are actually needed on the ground.

Source for $200 million per day?

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/us/politics/trump-hurr...

It is different because it's not a state, can't declare bankruptcy, and has limited options for getting representation.

Detroit declared bankruptcy. Puerto Rico cannot.

States can't declare bankruptcy, cities can.

States can actually dismiss debt as sovereign entities. That doesn't protect them from the consequences.. for example no one loaning them money in the future. But they can do it.

States can't use federal bankruptcy courts to restructure their obligations and are Constitutionally prohibited from 'impairing the obligation of contracts'.

How can U.S States dismiss debt as sovereign entities? They can probably refuse to pay it but the debt holders would have a solid case to get judicial relief.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...

That's a mechanism that might extend bankruptcy to the States at some point, but American States have always paid their debts to the financial market.

>American States have always paid their debts to the financial market.

I don't contest that, but what I am saying is, like National governments they can dismiss their debt. Although, of course they would have non existent credit after such an event. The States unlike some European governments are not used to functioning in the absence of borrowing.

True, but last year a law was passed (PROMESA) specifically to allow Puerto Rico to enter a court-supervised bankruptcy-like process, and it has done so. See also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/business/dealbook/puerto-...

Interesting. I'd read about their struggles over the last few years and how they were legally hemmed in, so it's good to see there's some way out of this mess.

It's still astonishing and borderline criminal that citizens in Washington D.C. and territories like Puerto Rico have nearly zero federal representation.

The American flag in World War II had only 48 stars, it's not even the same as the current flag, so if that can change, what's wrong with two more stars?

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