Sonia Rodriguez relies on a generator to power the elevator in her five-story assisted living center so residents can get down for their outdoor meals and some relief from the lack of air conditioning.

More than a month after Hurricane Maria ravaged this island with 155-mph winds, three-quarters of the residents are still without power, lining up at banks for cash and gathering at shopping malls, hotels or government buildings just to charge their cellphones.

Police are directing traffic at major intersections without working traffic lights. Water plants are still out of commission, forcing people to gather water from roadside streams and then boil it to be safe from bacteria. Those without home generators are living without refrigeration, air conditioning and anything but natural light. Those with generators need to pay for gasoline or diesel fuel, and haul those volatile liquids in their cars, along with water and daily groceries.

“Nowadays businesses run with the rising sun and close as soon as whatever they have runs out, or they don’t open at all,” said Andrews, 45, as she sat in a dark hall of her shop in Old San Juan. “Now a business of my caliber, which depends on tourism, is completely affected. It’s on total shutdown.”

 Even Gov. Ricardo Rosselló admits that his pledge to restore 95% of power by mid-December is “aggressive.”

The task is daunting as the Puerto Rico faces challenges not seen on the U.S. mainland after other recent storms devastated Texas and Florida.

• The entire island lost power after the Sept. 20 Category 5 storm damaged power plants and 80% of the island’s electrical grid, which includes 2,400 miles of transmission lines and 30,000 miles of distribution lines, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

• Getting help to the island is cumbersome.  Supplies and people to fix the power problems have to travel through ports and airports that are overwhelmed by aid deliveries, building materials, bucket trucks, helicopters, and every other necessity, slowing the delivery of supplies where needed.

• Puerto Rico’s power grid, saddled with years of financial mismanagement, was already weakened because preventive maintenance and upgrades were deferred to save money.

Col. Jeff Lloyd of the Army Corps of Engineers in Puerto Rico, which the federal government is relying on to help the U.S. territory restore power, would not commit to Rosselló’s mid-December timeline. The Corps has ordered $130 million worth of supplies, including 62,000 telephone poles from the U.S. mainland.

“The governor said that’s an aggressive estimate,” Lloyd said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make it possible. … What’s going to be most challenging is the rugged terrain in restoring the grid.”

The power restoration project is focused on three tracks, giving priority to critical life-saving, health and public safety facilities.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, working with the governor’s office, has identified 537 sites for emergency power generators that are still being delivered and installed across the island.

Most generators are delivered by trucks, which are sometimes delayed by landslides, missing road signs and cellular service that would help GPS-aided navigation, said Lisa Hunter, a Army Corps spokeswoman. A recent rain storm delayed sending a generator by Chinook helicopter to a government-funded health clinic on the island of Culebra.

Transmission lines that deliver electricity from major power stations are also under repair across the island. Much of that work is being done by Montana-based Whitefish Energy, which specializes in rugged, mountainous terrain.

“The interior of the country is all mountains with minimal road access,” said Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski. “This is why we use helicopters to access points.”

The company brought four helicopters to Puerto Rico, to carry workers to the tops of transmission towers and to act as sky cranes for equipment and lines. The National Guard and PREPA, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, have more helicopters to support Whitefish operations.

Techmanski said recent rains are hampering his 300 workers now on the island. Helicopters can’t be used in pouring rain. And an access road his crews built flooded a few days later.

“You can’t drive a vehicle up a road when it has 3 feet of running water on it,” Techmanski said.

And the power company will have to rebuild the smaller lines that deliver power to neighborhoods, homes and businesses.

As Puerto Rico’s electric grid is rebuilt, some planning is needed to include new technology, said Tom Lewis, president of Louis Berger, a New Jersey-based contractor helping PREPA and the Army Corps.  Solar power, wind power and smart micro grids can operate even when other sections of the grid shut down.

That would be “putting something back that is more sustainable and resilient for the next storm,” Lewis said.

He predicted that restoring 95% of the island’s power will probably happen in late December or early winter.

“The last mile is always the distribution network,” Lewis said. “Whether it’s more difficult in terms of access or dollars I don’t know, but it’s certainly the last part of the process.”

In the Égida Señora Perpetuo Socorro assisted living center, the 67 residents have power from a generator for about four hours in the morning and four hours at night. That’s when they have running water and an elevator, but still no air conditioning.

They have their meals on an outdoor patio sheltered from the sun. But administrator Rodriguez points out she doesn’t always have enough money to buy diesel for the generator.

“Sadly, if there comes a time all our resources end, those with nowhere to go would have to be relocated to a shelter,” she said. But so far they have managed. “While there’s diesel there is hope.”

Contributing: Atabey Nuñez 

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/23/storm-whipped-puerto-rico-power-restoration-plagued-problems-after-maria/792376001/

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The post Hurricane Maria wreaks destruction in Puerto Rico first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The entire system is down, the governor said. No one on the island has power from utilities.

Puerto Rico, which has been through a long recession and is deeply in debt, has a power grid that is “a little bit old, mishandled and weak,” Rosselló told “Anderson Cooper 360˚.”

“It depends on the damage to the infrastruacture,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s probably going to be severe. If it is … we’re looking at months as opposed to weeks or days.”

The impact of the storm on the island territory won’t be realized until officials can do a flyover and see what remains.

Rosselló said officials think some power stations are not badly damaged, but the distribution system is ruined. If transmission lines are in better shape than thought, power outages might be fixed sooner, the governor said.

Rosselló told CNN that at least one person died in the storm when a board was ripped from the house it had been nailed to by the wind and hit a man. The governor said the number of casualties in some areas is unknown because it is hard to communicate.

“We still don’t have a lot of information,” he said. “We’re virtually disconnected in terms of communications with the southeast part of the island.”

The storm — which restrengthened into a Category 3 hurricane early Thursday — has ravaged the Caribbean over the past few days, wreaking devastation on Dominica and the Virgin Islands before slamming into Puerto Rico.

And the threat is not yet over. A hurricane warning is in effect for the Turks and Caicos, the southeastern Bahamas and parts of the Dominican Republic.

Dominica: 14 dead; looting and food, water shortages
On the island of Dominica, which took the full force of Maria before the storm passed on to the US territory, government spokesman Charles Jong told CNN that 14 people had died.

He added that Maria was the “most horrifying experience” he has faced, despite seeing out many other hurricanes. He said he is out of power, food and water, and that people in Dominica have “gone into survival mode.” He added that there is widespread looting on the island.

The devastation on Dominica is immense, a CNN crew flying over the island reported. Hundreds of homes have been visibly flattened or damaged. Many had roofs torn off.

The landscape has been stripped bare. Thousands of trees have been snapped at their base and those still standing are devoid of leaves. Dominica was a lush green landscape, including rainforests, but now is brown and lifeless.

Storm has moved toward the Dominican Republic
Now that Maria has moved past Puerto Rico, a US territory with 3.3 million people, search and rescue teams are taking to the country’s darkened streets.

The devastating winds had died down to a whisper late Wednesday and the flooding rains were just a drizzle, but getting around was difficult due to widespread damage and no electricity except from generators.

The storm caused widespread flooding and ripped trees out of the ground. More than 10,000 remained in shelters Wednesday night.

“This is total devastation,” said Carlos Mercader, a spokesman for Puerto Rico’s governor. “Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same. … This is something of historic proportions.”

A nightly curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. will take effect Wednesday evening and end Saturday morning, Puerto Rico Gov. announced.

Maria is next expected to pass by the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands, causing dangerous storm surge and rainfall. People in eastern parts of the Dominican were seeing whipping winds Wednesday night.

The once-major hurricane has already killed seven people on the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, said Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda.

Browne said he had been communicating with the Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, who reported “widespread devastation” and whose own house was shredded by the storm.

Puerto Rican Olympic gymnast Tommy Ramos, who rode out the storm in the northern city of Vega Baja, posted video of gusts blowing debris in front of him.

“The house is steady,” Ramos told CNN. “What scares us is the flooding.”

Astriv Velez, who survived the storm inside a walk-in closet, said water was coming in through the walls of her home in Trujillo Alto, just outside San Juan.

“The wind and rain has not stopped,” Velez said. “There are no trees, there is no green — only brown.”

Devastation in St. Croix and St. Thomas
Maria obliterated buildings on several other Caribbean islands.

Aaliyah Bisamber of St. Croix shot video of Maria’s annihilation of her old house, which was right next to her new home.

“I was pretty amazed the hurricane had such power to rip off half the house,” she told CNN.

Murillo Melo recently moved to St. Croix from Brazil — only to face one of the island’s most catastrophic hurricanes.

“It was really scary. The floors were shaking, the walls, everything was moving and shaking,” he said.

“Here on the island and on the mainland people are trying to get in contact with friends and relatives. … People are desperate to get some news from their friends and relatives.”

US Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft said the damage to St. Croix is especially alarming.

“First priority is going to be saving of lives — not just in Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands — I’m especially concerned with St. Croix, that was also in the path of Hurricane Maria when it was a Category 5 hurricane,” Zukunft said Wednesday.

On the US Virgin Island of St. Thomas, retired New York police detective Austin Fields surveyed the damage to his residence.
“My home is no longer a home,” he said.

Virgin Islands and Dominican Republic under the gun
Maria’s wrath is far from over.

Dangerous storm surges “accompanied by large and destructive waves” will raise water levels 10 to 15 feet above normal tide levels in the hurricane warning areas of the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, the hurricane center said. The islands could also see as much as 20 inches of rain.

Some long-range models say Maria could move toward the North Carolina coast as it moves north. CNN Meteorologist Tom Sater said people should keep an eye on the storm.

Puerto Rico: 11 years in recession and now no electricity

Radars knocked out
Maria became the first hurricane of Category 4 strength or higher in 85 years to make a direct landfall on Puerto Rico.

The hurricane slammed the US territory with such intensity, it broke two National Weather Service radars there.

Are you affected by Hurricane Maria? Text, iMessage or WhatsApp your videos, photos and stories to CNN — but only if it’s safe to do so: +1 347-322-041. Or tag your posts on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter with #CNNweather.

CNN’s Christina Zdanowicz, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Deborah Bloom, David Williams,John Couwels, Brandon Miller, Euan McKirdy, Nick Paton Walsh, Sara Khan and Karan Olson contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/20/americas/hurricane-maria-caribbean-islands/index.html

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