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Lights Slowly Come On for Puerto Ricans in Rural Areas (csmonitor.com)
Almost a year after two hurricanes ravaged the US territory, repair crews are working to energize the more than 950 homes and businesses that remain without power in hard-to-reach areas. Puerto Ricans remain fearful that their newly returned normality could be short lived. An anonymous reader shares a report: Lights are slowly coming on for the more than 950 homes and businesses across Puerto Rico that remain without power in hard-to-reach areas. Repair crews sometimes have to dig holes by hand and scale down steep mountainsides to reach damaged light posts. Electrical poles have to be ferried in one-by-one via helicopter. It is slow work, and it has stretched nearly two months past the date when officials had promised that everyone in Puerto Rico would be energized. And even as TVs glow into the night and people like delivery man Steven Vilella once again savor favorite foods like shrimp and Rocky Road ice cream, many fear their newly returned normality could be short-lived. Turmoil at the island's power company and recent winds and rains that knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of people at the start of the new hurricane season have them worried.
electricity would probably come on sooner if you were a state! America first bitch!
Why not deliver a portable solar system to each in the interim until the grid can be repaired? It might not provide full capacity, but it will at least allow for basic lighting, refrigeration, etc.
Visited there many times.
It's essentially a third world country, though a territory of the US. An interesting third world country, and I liked many of the people.
Their odd state of limbo is not really our fault, unless you want to fault us for not being more authoritarian with them, which I doubt.
There isn't even a Navy base there anymore, which was pretty much the only reason they are a US territory. It had to go, because we are such evil imperialists, ya know.
I find it amazing that, in the 21st century, the utility we've come to rely on the most is the least reliable. Here in central Florida, we call the power company "Florida Flicker and Flash" because virtually any weather anomaly causes power fluctuations or outages. I can't imagine what it's like in PR.
Puerto Rico should become a state. Write in a Texas-style escape clause if you want to placate your folks who dream fantasies of an island-nation empire.
Puerto Rico is an enormously productive place - with wonderful people who are technologically capable, and an amazing history of overcoming strife.
But right now, it is also once again a place of unprecedented cruelty imposed on it, mostly due to political demands.
Statehood would mean senators, congressmen, shared defense (you already have many, many of your people in our armies), and yes, disaster relief with less wiggle room than our Republicans tend to always take in large disasters.
Also, breaking that '50' magic number would also help places like Washington DC escape from a similar turmoil.
You're more populous than most states, for goodness sake:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Oh, and you'll help us vote against Trump more effectively this way.
Ryan Fenton
Trump's coal mines will change the climate causing more hurricanes. Plus people don't care about you because you are brown people.
It seems logical in a place prone to get hit at least once if not more a summer by a hurricane that there should be an emphasis on burying the lines, particularly the high voltage transmission backbone lines. This, along with 'micro-grids' powered by solar or other means with battery backups would help ensure the island doesn't go completely dark at once. It will be a major undertaking, but the alternative is Puerto Ricans reverting back to the 19th century every year for 9 months.
Given there are approximately 1.26 million households and 43,000 businessesin Puerto Rico, this is actually pretty much a non-issue. We're talking about 0.07% of the homes and businesses in PR that are left without power. My guess is you get close to that in any given US city just from daily work/repairs and accidents (drunks hitting power poles, etc).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Without any oversight from the US, corruption will go from the order of the day to Hatian levels.
Puerto Rico was failed by the USA -- no reason for them to seek closer ties to Washington as a state.
You mean except for actually being able to have a voice and a vote in Congress? (5 or 6 congressional seats and two senate seats) Plus they would get to vote for President. They were failed by the current administration and congress because they lack a voice and a vote.
Frankly, independence and membership in CARICOM might be a better solution, with a visa reciprocity agreement with the USA
Won't happen. Frankly Puerto Rico should have petitioned to become a state a long time ago. I understand why they haven't but remaining an unincorporated territory of the US seems like a bad plan given recent events.
It seems logical in a place prone to get hit at least once if not more a summer by a hurricane
Wikipedia:
A hurricane passes in the vicinity of the island, on average, every seven years.
are you a fucking idiot or what?
http://hydrogenhouseproject.or...
When the Governor decided to start trashing the USA recovery effort (because of Trump) while standing in front of huge piles of relief supplies, I lost my sympathy.
Huge piles?
It wasn't enough. The Trump administration really dropped the ball.
apparently found creimer's website by accident and demanded Trump cut the power again. They felt they were better off living as hunter-gatherers rather than risk seeing that again.
Why not deliver a portable solar system to each in the interim until the grid can be repaired?
Who is going to pay for it? That's the problem with all of this. Puerto Rico is broke and gets little help from the US government despite every citizen of Puerto Rico being a US citizen.
It seems logical in a place prone to get hit at least once if not more a summer by a hurricane that there should be an emphasis on burying the lines, particularly the high voltage transmission backbone lines.
Puerto Rico get hit by a hurricaine about every three years on average.
As for burying lines, it's a fine idea but an expensive one. Burying lines costs about 5X as much per mile just to lay the lines. And maintenance becomes an issue when you have to dig to solve a problem. Remember that Puerto Rico has a lot of financial problems so spending extra to bury the lines is going to be difficult for purely financial reasons if nothing else.
The US only cares about the White and the Wealthy. Being part of the US didn't help those thousands of people killed in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. PR would be better off if they left the US entirely.
I don't respond to AC's.
Trump's SIXTH bankrupcy happens inside six months.. get ready to stand in line for food Amerikuks!
The homes without power are systematically without power. The daily work/repairs and accident number is on top of that.
I'd say deliver a portable galaxy, or failing that maybe a nice globular cluster.
For the next round of hurricane season.
They're so ready to tolerate and be polite to literal Nazis.
...for this hurricane season.
That was until the left went batshit crazy and insisted men in dresses could use women's bathrooms etc. I have now embraced the alt-right, and dream of a white ethnostate.
Also, Catholicism and American GOP conservatism don't really align, other than perhaps on abortion.
Not true at all nor that simple. A majority of white catholics have voted republican in every presidential election since 2000 roughly 55-65% so clearly there is alignment there. The hispanic catholics on the other hand vote democrat rather strongly - about 70% of them. This probably has less to do with religion and more to do with race since the republican party has systematically driven away voters who aren't white. Also the majority of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court are catholic. (Clarence, Roberts, Alito)
The prosperity gospel is not a Catholic idea.
Really? Have you seen the amount of gold leaf in the Vatican? Not exactly a monument to austerity and modest living. Get real. While I hesitate to paint with to broad a brush in many cases, I feel entirely comfortable saying that they catholic church is VERY comfortable with money. They might not be as gauche about it as some of their evangelical counterparts but make no mistake that they care about money a LOT.
The Catholic Church abhors the death penalty.
That has not been their policy for most of their history nor is it their official position even today. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the death penalty is permissible in certain cases if the "guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined". Never mind the crusades, the inquisition, countless religious wars, executions of heretics, etc... The catholic church has a long and storied history of support for capital punishment.
The current Pope is very left-liberal as far as wealth concentration and the environment.
No he is not. He's just not as ridiculously far right as the previous popes but don't make the mistake of thinking he's some left leaning hippie. I know a lot of people like him but let's not pretend he's really changing how the catholic church operates or what they stand for. He's at most shaving off some of the pointy bits.