Not necessarily replying to you, specifically, slowguy, but I'll share some information I have been given that was accurate as of Tuesday. My company relies heavily on a product that is manufactured in PR and we have been anxiously awaiting an update on resumption of shipments for this critical part of our product. We are bracing for a very significant impact on our production as a result of the circumstances in PR. Here is what my executive level contact shared with me yesterday:

"...Unfortunately with the power grid, cell towers, and general infrastructure of the island all still down, it has been difficult to get updates on the welfare of my colleagues after the hurricane. While the port in San Juan is functional, the focus has been around the humanitarian needs of our employees and the people of PR. Fortunately, the early reports are that our plant in Arecibo sustained minimal damage despite the direct hit from Maria."

"The good news is that port is open and the plant is in good shape which will limit the total impact to meeting our customer’s needs."

The pilot's association I am a member of had a number of pilots volunteer to fly supplies down to PR. However, without power, there is no radar service and probably, no radio communication with incoming aircraft. There would be no ground based instrument landing systems or runway lighting either. This significantly affects the acceptance rate of aircraft wanting to land at the airport, especially if the weather doesn't allow pilots to use their own eyeballs to maintain visual separation from one another. Consequently, there have been priorities assigned to which aircraft can land first and they have been spaced out so that their arrival times are 15 minutes apart. The power situation for the airport should be one of the first to be addressed so that more supplies can be delivered more quickly. I heard yesterday that Lowe's had provided a huge load of generators at 'an extremely attractive price', but the plane assigned to fly them down to PR still hadn't been released to go there. So, critical things on the ground need to be addressed before they can really start getting supplies in there. Deliveries could be made by ship, but the product we use generally takes about 10 days to 2 weeks from the time it is shipped from PR to arrive at our plant. I imagine that the proposition for finding cargo ships that can be used for supplies will take some time. They have to find available ships, get them loaded, transit about a thousand miles of ocean, and then unload and distribute the supplies.

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If you are a Canuck that engages in gratuitous bashing of the US, you are probably on my Iggy List. So, save your self a bunch of typing a response unless you also feel the need to gratuitously bash me. If so, have fun.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f___ things up" - Barack Obama, 2020

One of the doctors where Lucy works called her today. He told her that he has a sister in the same town that the family is in. They have a satellite phone and will try to find our family and let them use the phone to tell us their situation.

I'm hopeful, but not overly optimistic. San German is a large town and finding a "Santos" there will be like finding a "Smith" here.

It will be nice to get any news from the area, good or bad.

My understanding, from what I've been reading and listening to, is that the south west corner did not take that bad a hit. All of the island is devastated, but they took a little less and are not in any immediate danger. Besides being out of water and food. :(

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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix

You're seriously saying that the airport has no back up generators? I'm not saying you're wrong, but this would be pretty surprising.

Backup generators mean absolutely nothing if your radar systems have been blown apart, the radio antennas destroyed, and the electrical systems supporting them has been ruined.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

The shipping lanes are open. The only restriction pertains to what flag the ship flies. Basically, only U.S. flagged ships can deliver aid to Puerto Rico. I hate to break the news to you but in this scenario the law that's in place makes no practical difference. The only reason the story was even run was to point out one of the U.S's protectionist/nationalist laws (to which I say "so what?).

Aid will be slow to arrive to Puerto Rico simply because of geographical considerations. U.S. naval assets have been deployed. That's all anyone can do at this point.

I am hypothesizing as a result of hearing incoming aircraft arrivals were being spaced out to 15 minute intervals. If ATC services were available, they wouldn't have to do that.

Greg

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If you are a Canuck that engages in gratuitous bashing of the US, you are probably on my Iggy List. So, save your self a bunch of typing a response unless you also feel the need to gratuitously bash me. If so, have fun.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f___ things up" - Barack Obama, 2020

Fair point.

This article appears to have more concrete info.

I'm new here -- I have no idea what TDS is.

But I'm sure someone can enlighten me.
(And it'll happen soon, next few posts, in fact if not much sooner, and that it'll be tremendous.
So I'll see what happens, but you know (and we all know) it's going to be great. And a lot of ppl will be talking about it.)

The article is pretty consistent with what I was told. Getting the airport back up to full operational status is going to be key. I just checked and their instrument landing systems are all out of service.

Greg

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If you are a Canuck that engages in gratuitous bashing of the US, you are probably on my Iggy List. So, save your self a bunch of typing a response unless you also feel the need to gratuitously bash me. If so, have fun.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f___ things up" - Barack Obama, 2020

But how hard of a question is this to answer, and why does FEMA have to wait for her to tell them? It's the same with EVERY major disaster. Food, water and medical supplies are critical in the first few days. Those are always the immediate needs while other stuff gets set up. Are they even trained in "Emergency Management"? Is Michael Brown still running the agency or what?

No it's not hard to answer and no FEMA doesn't have to wait to get the mayor's answer before pushing 'stuff' forward. But, FEMA has much more capability these days so it would very much like to know exactly what this mayor needs so they can tailor what they push forward to the area/people she is responsible for.

For several years i ran a program responsible for FEMA regions IV and VI. Ostensibly i worked for OSD but for all intents and purposes i basically worked for NORTHCOM. This was post-Katrina which was a event when NORTHCOM didn't know shit and quite literally had to watch CNN to gather what it was leaders and people in impact zones needed. So post Katrina the mantra was---"no more Katrinas." and that's where i came on board time-wise with my second job, post retirement, as a contractor. The first priority i was given was hurricane prep in FEMA regions IV and VI--although we did get around to a few prep scenarios for 5kt nuke detonations in major metropolitan areas and was planning some pandemic outbreak planning but i can't talk much about those results.

So i would go into a State and link up with its National Guard leadership and State Emergency Response leadership. Let's just use GA since that's where i live. I would set up a table top exercise with the NG leadership (TAG, J3, J4 etc) GEMA and the Gov's rep. We ran the table top exercise on a CAT IV hurricane hitting a major coastal area--like Savannah, GA. I had them record all their shortfalls and requirements in the aftermath of the exercise: power generation requirements; APOD/SPOD regeneration req's; water purification requirements; security req's; reconnaissance shortfalls (how do you check on road and bridge conditions??); high water capable trucks; immediate food and med requirements; helo requirements (crews/systems that were hoist capable), bridging, etc etc. We then entered all this in a program called DRRS (Defense Readiness Reporting System) that NORTHCOM uses to view what a US Governor may end up calling for the FEDs to supply. NORTHCOM/FEMA use the program to stage assets outside the impact area ready to surge in based on the call from the Governor (who is the one in charge). This was hard work and i spent four years traveling every week working from NC down to TX and back again getting ready for hurricanes (and the odd 5kt nuke strike). I didn't do FEMA region II so I wasn't personally involved in that effort but I've heard and seen it briefed plenty of times and it's much much harder than any of the folks I was helping get ready.

I can only assure you that we've spent a lot of effort to be as ready as we can for this and that as i type this there are some professional and dedicated people out there trying to bring the right aid to their fellow citizens in PR just as fast as it can be done. It's also one of the reasons i've found aspects of Dan Empfield's assertions in this thread so offensive.

FWIW

/r

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Steve

I did a similar job, except working on the consequences of an adversary maritime mining scenario, working on impacts to ports and all the local, State, and Federal agencies plus private sector actors. I did the same for keeping open the ports of S.Korea and several other countries including European and Middle Eastern allies. Plus I have a handful of Humanitarian Service medals for work post-Katrina (I was there within a day or two doing the same stuff the ships sitting off PR are doing now), in East Timor, and in Lybia. Which is why I have very little patience for Dan's insinuation that I don't care very much since PR isn't full of people who wear a uniform like me. It betrays a pretty fundamental lack of understanding about why we do the job we do, and demonstrates a pretty undeserved sense of smug superiority that Dan flashes around here in the LR on a semi-regular basis.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

So Steve and Slowguy just dropped the mic.

The Mayor is on CNN right now, and she just said that she doesn't understand why no radar at airports or obstacles at ports is a problem, because in war, we would have little drones or little parachutes dropping off supplies all over the place.

I think she may have seen too much Hunger Games.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I know Dan Empfield is all over this--since he's made the personal choice to make it personal

Meanwhile. How sad for the people of PR to see/hear/read stuff like this from their elected official?

What can we do? What have i done? How much more can i do? So in this instance i am relying on my giving to the Catholic Church--whom i am given to understand is universal.

i am planning on getting a Ham license so perhaps the next time this happens (and it will) i can provide commo support to those in need.

/r

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Steve

It's not great, especially because it appears that the Governor generally has his act together and is executing the plans that the island and the Federal govt had in place for such a disaster, while the Mayor of San Juan seems like a hysterical mess.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Trump
Derangement
Syndrome

The symptoms are an obsessive tendency to criticize anything Trump does or says without concern for legitimacy, correctness, or any conclusions that come about from rational thought. Those with more advanced cases ascribe completely unpredictable natural events as the result of Trump being President and blame him for natural disasters like hurricanes. There are even more advanced cases displayed by Democratic members of Congress that prepare comments and memes for expected future events criticizing any and all policy proposals by Trump, even proposals THEY advanced prior to the election.

There are number of TDS victims right here in this forum. They are easy to spot. You should check your mirror....

Greg

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If you are a Canuck that engages in gratuitous bashing of the US, you are probably on my Iggy List. So, save your self a bunch of typing a response unless you also feel the need to gratuitously bash me. If so, have fun.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f___ things up" - Barack Obama, 2020

There's a segment of society that believes it's being sophisticated by assuming your craven racism. Being anti american, and anti white -- especially if you are white -- is casually accepted in this political climate. It's as controversial as stipulating the sky is blue. Think about it. If you and Steve don't work in the industry, and have first hand knowledge of the kinds of things that are really going on, who here is refuting Dan's cynical and totally insulting arguments? And, in fairness to Dan, there's nothing particularly special about his insinuation. We all know there are now large percentages of people that would have no compunction about throwing out similarly hateful comments about their country and their countrymen as if they were saying "good morning".

Yep, you've got it, TDS.

Also, I don't know what you did when you were creating your response, but somehow, you switched the headers that indicate who said what. Please do not ascribe credit to me for what you said.

Greg

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If you are a Canuck that engages in gratuitous bashing of the US, you are probably on my Iggy List. So, save your self a bunch of typing a response unless you also feel the need to gratuitously bash me. If so, have fun.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f___ things up" - Barack Obama, 2020