Finally some stats on the island's status:
Meanwhile the head of FEMA blamed Puerto Rico politicians for the delay in aid for not getting involved:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-puerto-rican-politics-slowed-storm-response
and that's after he publicly said ”We filtered out the mayor a long time ago".
- FEMA response is providing 1 meal a day to 10% of those who need it (57% of the population)
- 36% of people without clean drinking water
- 84% of people still without electricity
- 92% of roads are closed
Federal officials privately admit there is a massive shortage of meals in Puerto Rico three weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) say that the government and its partners are only providing 200,000 meals a day to meet the needs of more than 2 million people. That is a daily shortfall of between 1.8m and 5.8m meals each day.
The scale of the food crisis dwarfs the more widely publicized challenges of restoring power and communications. More than a third of Puerto Ricans are still struggling to live without drinking water.
Now the biggest provider of cooked meals says Fema is putting its operations at risk of closure.
World Central Kitchen, founded by chef José Andrés, cooks and distributes 90,000 meals a day through a network of local chefs and kitchens.
Its Fema contract, to provide just 20,000 meals a day, ended on Tuesday. Fema insists it is bound by federal rules that mean it will take several weeks for a new contract to emerge to feed more Americans.
”There is no urgency in the government response to this humanitarian crisis," Andrés said. ”They have all the officials and armed guards at headquarters, but they have no information about the island. They don't even have a map they can share about who needs food. Fema is over-paying and it is under-delivering."
Conditions on Puerto Rico remain dire; just 16% of islanders having access to electricity. While commercial flights have resumed, and most gas stations have re-opened, much of the island's economy remains at a standstill. Less than 400 miles of the island's 5,000 miles of road are open to traffic.
Meanwhile the head of FEMA blamed Puerto Rico politicians for the delay in aid for not getting involved:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-puerto-rican-politics-slowed-storm-response
Head of FEMA Says Puerto Rican Politics Slowed Storm Response
The Trump administration's emergency management director said political infighting in Puerto Rico has slowed the pace of recovery from Hurricane Maria.
"Politics between Republicans and Democrats is bad enough -- but in Puerto Rico, politics is even worse," Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said at a briefing with reporters Monday in Washington. "When you can't get elected officials at the local level to come to a joint field office because they disagree with the politics of the governor that's there, it makes things difficult."
While Long didn't mention any particular officials by name, he has previously criticized the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, as insufficiently involved in the effort. Cruz and President Donald Trump have been at odds since a week after the hurricane, with the mayor accusing Trump of not doing enough to save lives.
After acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke called the federal government's response to Maria "a good-news story," Cruz responded: "If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy."
and that's after he publicly said ”We filtered out the mayor a long time ago".