Puerto Rico 6 Months after Hurricane Maria

Yesterday, marked half-a-year since Hurricane Maria devasted the island of Puerto Rico.  There are two extremes to where the island stands as far as it’s recovery is concerned.  On the first hand, the island’s tourism is striving, and business is not just back, but there has in fact been a boom with outsiders both from the recovery efforts and travelers visiting the island and enjoying many of the amenities and activities such as the night life and festivals.  On the other extreme there are still major areas of the island that remain without power, major spikes in crime, real estate market with little to no signs of recovery, major businesses closing shop, an increase in mental health problems, lack of capital and funding for small businesses, public sector education in crisis, an imposed 12.5% foreign tax to industries by the US Mainland, a questionable increase in the death tolls, and if that’s not enough, it remains questionable whether electric systems will be capable of sustaining another major storm.

While all the issues affecting Puerto Rico are not solely due to Hurricane Maria, there is no doubt that the devasting phenomenon increased dyer conditions in the island and it most certainly place the spotlight such that the island can’t simply be ignored.  Marking the 6 months since Maria, there were various activities from rallies to community meetings going all over from San Juan, Washington D.C. and throughout the east coast including throughout the state of New York where many Puerto Ricans from first and second generations live.

Congress on Puerto Rico

In Washington D.C., Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez held a bipartisan conference overviewing the progress and challenges facing the island still to date.  She invited a panel who presented on the Revised Fiscal Plan, The Effect of the New Tax Law on Puerto Rico, the Role of NGO’s in Recovery Efforts and finally the Role of Small Business and the Private Sector in Recovery Efforts. While the goal of the conference was to answer, “What’s Next?” as far as what are the next steps for Puerto Rico, the reality is that it helped highlight the underlining issues rather than define a strategy for moving forward. No doubt that there will be one and having representation in Congress is but only the beginning.  Sadly, there was a lack of clarity in various aspects, specifically when the panel was questioned over SBA’s role in assisting and fostering small businesses in the island and the other topic was when presenting over the issue of education. On the first issue, SBA in Puerto Rico doesn’t assist entrepreneurs and small business owners access credit, instead individuals are left to venture on their own to take out loans or revolving lines of credit at high market interest.  The sad reality is that the lack of equity for many of these business owners leaves financial institutions discourage from taking on risk even if it meant charging high interest rates.  Also, the SBA lacks understanding of how to run a business, providing deficient advice to small business in their start-up and often requiring costly and time-consuming courses and seminars that render very little to the business owners bottom line.  Even when a business owner has equity, banks discourage the use of a revolving line of credit and attempts to convince the business owner on acquiring a loan instead, which ensures the bank on placing the business owner on maximum debt prior to having stable revenue.  Sadly, the SBA also encourages this sort of lending practice. Since the gentlemen who spoke about SBA also mentioned the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO), it is only fare to say that this too is another failed agency in Puerto Rico.  If anyone takes the time to volunteer and assist in PRIDCO’s efforts to promote and encourage industries to come to the island, you will quickly become aware that it’s efforts amount to lots of conversations and promotion, but very little action and execution.  Mainly, because industries that are interested in investing in the island are left at the mercy of the dozens of local and federal organizations that regulate everything from constructions permits to taxation.  There is no surprise why they often prefer more accommodating and business friendly hosts for their investments in places like Singapore and Ireland.

When talking about the topic of education, a high-level mention of how implementing vouchers were a failure in other parts of the world.  The discouraging aspect of this presentation is that the presenter had no experience of the current challenges and needs of the Puerto Rico education system, or even for the brief session didn’t demonstrate a connection to the existing issues.  Perhaps, if the presenter realized that many parents work hard to provide access to private schooling for their children as an alternative to public education, often leaving many of these families struggling to make ends meet, then perhaps looking at alternatives such as vouchers may not seem such a bad thing after all.  The problem with finding a solution for improving Puerto Rico’s broken educational system is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone looking at the problem in a holistic manner.  For example, it is no mystery that the islands population has been declining and this has meant less children participating in the educational system both public and private.  This creates a financial challenge to both the private and public schools to maintain staff and existing facilities.  This article doesn’t pretend to provide the solution, because the answer may be clear when asking parents and students as to where they rather have these children gain their education.  Perhaps, the answer may just be a mix bag where it’s not one fits all.

It is good to note that the seat with the name tag for Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi’s remain vacant during the session, although it may be possible that she had other more pressing issues to attend.  It does demonstrate how Puerto Rico needs more than just a few allies in Congress, but rather genuine representation.

For the moment, both the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico have a few members in Congress like Nydia Velazquez who has dare to stand by them and refuses to leave them as merely the forgotten Americans.

Later in day in New York, a group of individuals, activist and FEMA representative met to discuss on ways the various efforts can come together and work more effectively.  The focus centered around making a platform for people who have been organizing on the ground either in Puerto Rico and in New York City.  The meeting was organized by NYDIS, which is an organization currently receiving funding from NYC to assist evacuees from Puerto Rico and their mission is to provide on-going support for their long-term recovery.  This initial meeting was successful in bringing together many individual contributors and promises to unite these efforts and provide more effective assistance to those who have been affecting by Hurricane Maria.

The meeting also gave the opportunity for many to speak out as to how they have been participating in aiding Puerto Rico, and also hear of actual evacuees and the challenges they have been facing.  What’s even more rewarding is that this same program sorts out to help evacuees from the US Virgin Islands as well.

Now, just a quick synopsis from the beginning:

1. Puerto Rico was in the beginning stages of recovery from Hurricane Irma that had left approximately 50% of the island without power merely 2 weeks prior.
2. Days before Hurricane Maria, weather forecasters predict it will hit landfall as a category 5 hurricane giving local and federal agencies ample time to prepare.
3. Initial winds began its devastation early Tuesday September 19^th and lasted throughout Thursday September 21^st, although the official landfall is marked as September 20^th, 2017.
4. The National Guard remained immobilized for nearly 10 days after the hurricane had past.
5. The island was completely immobilized with a complete halt in all logistic from docks to the distribution of fuel.
6. The first assistance to restore power came over two weeks later with merely a fraction of the crews publicizes by the governor and PREPA.
7. Public safety and logistic weren’t addressed until nearly 3 weeks into the aftermath.
8. The public outrage over a shady contract with a company named Whitefish to restore electric power left the governor scrambling for assistance from other state governors, mainly Florida and New York.
9. Governor makes a declaration that 90% of the islands power will be restore by December and fires the director of PREPA after he states that it would be nearly impossible to reach that goal. The official version was that the Director was responsible for the Whitefish contract, and that the governor was not aware of the dealings.
10. The President of the United States makes Tweets toward Puerto Rico from disgrace to praise, and he visits the island. On one hand stating how “they” want everything handed to them to how great his response has been.
11. Yet another shady contract from FEMA makes headlines made to a Ms. Brown who failed to make meal deliveries. With so many restaurants and suppliers locally in the island, why would you contract someone from outside anyways?
12. Many local suppliers were left out in assisting in the recovery.
13. 6 months later, FEMA is still under emergency response.
14. Army Corp of Engineers is still picking up hurricane debris.
15. An estimated 250,000 have left the island.
16. Congress approved $15.8 billion for both Puerto Rico and US Virgin Island, no where near the estimated $94 billion needed for PR alone.
17. Rural areas remain without power, a little over 100,000 customers as the PREPA.
18. Increase in suicide rate, estimates of attempted suicide are up by 246% (3,050) and those who have considered suicide up by 83% (9,645).
19. A request from Congresswomen Nydia Velazquez to make a recount of the Hurricane Related deaths, which the local government has agreed to do.

Deaths in Puerto Rico