Tag Archives: FEMA

U.S. House committee examining barriers to Puerto Rico recovery: official

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump walks past hurricane wreckage as he participates in a walking tour with (L-R) first lady Melania Trump, Guaynabo Mayor Angel Perez Otero, FEMA Administrator Brock Long and Lt. General Jeffrey Buchanan in areas damaged by Hurricane Maria in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, U.S. on October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Stephanie Kelly

(Reuters) – The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources said it will work to identify red tape and other bureaucratic hurdles to speed up Puerto Rico’s recovery and rebuilding, as the island struggles to recover from the impact of Hurricane Maria.

Committee Chairman Rob Bishop said in a press call on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal partners will also likely be engaged for years in helping Puerto Rico get back on its feet.

Bishop added that an emergency response will be executed through FEMA and local officials.

“An emergency funding package is taking place as we speak to support those efforts,” he said.

On Tuesday a White House official told Reuters the White House was preparing a $29 billion disaster aid request to be sent to Congress after hurricanes hit Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida.

The request was expected to come on Wednesday. It will combine nearly $13 billion in new relief for hurricane victims with $16 billion for the government-backed flood insurance program.

Bishop said under evaluation was also the question of whether to modify or give additional power to the oversight board tasked with overseeing Puerto Rico’s debt restructuring.

Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were battered by hurricanes Irma and Maria. Hurricane Maria knocked out power to Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents last month, devastating the island’s already dilapidated electric power infrastructure.

Following a closed-door meeting of the committee, Puerto Rico’s Republican delegate, Jenniffer Gonzalez, told reporters there are ongoing discussions among members of Congress, White House aides and the Treasury Department over a possible short-term loan to Puerto Rico, which she said will face a liquidity crisis in November.

She said it was unclear whether Trump might be able to issue an executive order, if he so desired, to provide quick financial help or whether Congress would have to act.

Representative Raul Grijalva, the senior Democrat on the panel, said of PROMESA after the meeting: “I said let’s open it up and see what is working and see what is not applicable in this situation, what we need to suspend.”

PROMESA is the federal 2016 rescue law under which Puerto Rico in May filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Megan Davies in New York, and Richard Cowan in Washington; writing by Stephanie Kelly; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Daniel Bases)

San Juan mayor calls hurricane disaster ‘a people-are-dying’ story

Trump administration asks Congress for $29 billion in hurricane relief

By Robin Respaut and Dave Graham

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – The mayor of Puerto Rico’s hurricane-battered capital spoke on Friday of thirsty children drinking from creeks. A woman with diabetes said a lack of refrigeration had spoiled her insulin. An insurance adjuster said roads have virtually vanished on parts of the island.

In enumerable ways large and small, many of the 3.4 million inhabitants of Puerto Rico struggled through a 10th day with little or no access to basic necessities – from electricity and clean, running water to communications, food and medicine.

Carmen Yulin Cruz, mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan, gave voice to rising anger on the U.S. island territory as she delivered a sharp retort on Friday to comments from a top Trump administration official who said the federal relief effort was a “a good news story.”

“Damn it, this is not a good news story,” Cruz told CNN. “This is a people-are-dying story. This is a life-or-death story.”

Acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, head of the parent department for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said on Thursday she was satisfied with the disaster response so far.

“I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane,” Duke said.

Paying a visit to Puerto Rico on Friday for an aerial tour of the island with Governor Ricardo Rossello, Duke moderated her message, telling reporters she was proud of the recovery work but adding that she and President Donald Trump would not be satisfied until the territory was fully functional.

Maria, the most powerful storm to strike Puerto Rico in nearly 90 years, has killed at least 16 people on the island, according to the official death toll. More than 30 deaths have been attributed to the storm across the Caribbean.

Rossello has called the widespread heavy damage to Puerto Rico’s homes, roads and infrastructure unprecedented, though he has praised the U.S. government’s relief efforts.

Cruz, appearing in a later interview, bristled at suggestions that the relief effort had been well-coordinated.

“There is a disconnect between what the FEMA people are saying is happening and what the mayors and the people in the towns know that is happening,” Cruz, who has been living in a shelter since her own home was flooded, said on CNN.

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Help us. We are dying,” Cruz said she was hopeful the situation would improve, but added, “People can’t fathom what it is to have children drinking from creeks, to have people in nursing homes without oxygen.”

‘WE ARE ALONE’

The mayor of San Germán, a town of about 35,000 in the southwestern corner of the island, echoed Cruz’s harsh words.

“The governor is giving a message that everything is resolved, and it is not true,” Mayor Isidro Negron Irizarry said in Spanish on Twitter. “There is no functional operations structure. We are alone.”

Trump, who was scheduled to visit next week, addressed the situation before a speech in Washington about his new tax plan.

“The electrical grid and other infrastructure were already in very, very poor shape,” he said. “And now virtually everything has been wiped out, and we will have to really start all over again. We’re literally starting from scratch.”

Colonel James DeLapp, the Army Corps of Engineers commander for Puerto Rico, told CNN that rebuilding the island’s crippled power grid was a massive undertaking.

“The closest thing we’ve had is when the Army Corps led the effort to restore Iraq’s electricity in the early stages of the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004,” he said.

Further complicating recovery is a financial crisis marked by Puerto Rico’s record bankruptcy filing in May and the weight of $72 billion in outstanding debt.

“Ultimately the government of Puerto Rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort, which will end up being one of the biggest ever, will be funded and organized, and what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island,” Trump said.

‘ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES’

In Old San Juan, the capital’s historic colonial section, customers lined up on the sidewalk outside Casa Cortes ChocoBar cafe for sandwiches and coffee, being handed out from a small window between plywood planks clinging to the exterior wall.

“We’re one of the few restaurants that have a generator,” said Daniela Santini, 19, who works there. “Most businesses don’t have electricity, only some have water. We’re one of the lucky ones.”

Nancy Rivera, 59, a San Juan resident who suffers from diabetes, was forced to go without her medication by a lack of electricity. “I stopped using the insulin in my refrigerator. It’s too warm,” she said.

Ground transportation, hampered by fuel shortages and streets blocked with fallen vegetation and utility wires, remained a major challenge.

“You can’t see the roads,” said Alvaro Trueba, a regional catastrophe coordinator for property insurer Chubb Ltd, who told Reuters that adjusters face difficulties driving about the island.

More troops, medical supplies and vehicles were on the way to the island, but it will be some time before the U.S. territory is back on its feet, the senior U.S. general appointed to lead military relief operations said on Friday.

“We’re certainly bringing in more,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan told CNN on Friday, a day after he was appointed by the Pentagon.

The hardships on Puerto Rico have largely overshadowed similar struggles faced by the neighboring U.S. Virgin Islands, slammed by two major hurricanes – Irma and Maria – in the span of a month.

Most of St. Croix, the largest of the three major islands in that territory, remained without electricity and cellular communications nine days after Maria struck. Shelters were still packed and long lines stretched around emergency supply centers.

At one such facility, anguished residents pleaded for more than the single sheets of plastic tarp that National Guard troops were handing out.

Meanwhile, the insurance industry was tallying the mounting costs of Maria, with one modeling firm estimating that claims could total as much as $85 billion.

Rossello told CNN on Friday the federal government has responded to his requests and that he was in regular contact with FEMA’s director, though more needed to be done.

“We do have severe logistical limitations. It has been enhancing, but it’s still nowhere near where it needs to be,” Rossello said.

Asked how long it would take for Puerto Rico to recover, Buchanan, the general leading the military effort, gave a slight sigh and said: “This is a very, very long duration.”

(Reporting by Robin Respaut and Dave Graham in SAN JUAN, Doina Chiacu, Roberta Rampton, Justin Mitchell and Makini Brice in WASHINGTON, and Lisa Maria Garza in DALLAS and Suzanne Barlyn in NEW YORK; Writing by Bill Rigby and Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Mary Milliken)

Hurricane-ravaged U.S. cities hit by rising cleanup costs

FILE PHOTO: Flood-damaged contents from people's homes line the street following the aftermath of tropical storm Harvey in Wharton, Texas, U.S., September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Rod Nickel

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Communities in Texas and Florida, each swamped by a hurricane within two weeks of one another, are rewriting debris removal contracts and paying millions of dollars more to lure trucks, as subcontractors say costs have jumped.

The willingness of communities to renegotiate such contracts in the aftermath of hurricanes Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida shows the limits of pre-planning for events as unpredictable as back-to-back hurricanes.

Higher fees, however, may not be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), even after these huge storms brought intense public pressure to clear millions of cubic yards of rubbish from streets and damaged furnishings from flooded homes and businesses.

In Texas, Houston is considering a 50-percent increase in pay for haulers and Harris County, which encompasses the city, is also offering incentives to recruit more trucks. In Florida, the City of Miami hiked its rates for debris removal by as much as double to DRC Emergency Services, CrowderGulf LLC and Ceres Environmental Services Inc, city documents show.

Local officials are rewriting contracts to attract subcontractors from other regions and businesses such as logging and dirt-hauling, citing a shortage of trucks to cart debris away because fleets are stretched across two devastated states. The removal business relies on networks of subcontracted trucks when disasters strike.

DRC’s subcontracting costs have jumped by at least 30 percent, said John Sullivan, president of the Galveston, Texas-based disaster specialist, shrinking margins to “almost nothing” as the company has to pay more to attract truck owners.

“It’s not a renegotiation, it’s a necessity,” Sullivan said. “The increase that we’re getting is all going to (pay) costs.”

Subcontractors often include out-of-state operators lured by the opportunity for a financial windfall.

Johnny Helaire, owner of Crossroads Trucking Service, said the Houston cleanup offers steady work at a time when his dirt and gravel business is slumping.

Each of Helaire’s 12 trucks earns on average $800 gross per day more in Houston than they would loading dirt, not counting hotel and food expenses, he said, while directing workers through a headset like a football coach.

Across the Texas Gulf Coast, Harvey left as much as 200 million cubic yards (153 million cubic meters) of trash that must be removed, the state has estimated.

Much of that still lines local streets. Houston’s director of solid waste management, Harry Hayes estimated that just 5 percent of the city’s debris had been cleared by Sept. 20.

“Houston ended up being ground zero. A thousand-year rain event is going to generate a wider field of debris, considering our population,” than in smaller Texan cities, Hayes said.

The city wants to increase its debris-hauling rate to $11.84 per cubic yard from $7.86, an amount that would help it get 200 more trucks from contractors, he said. Houston now has about 330 in service.

DRC expects to handle 2.5 million cubic yards in the Houston area alone. On that basis, Houston’s pay increase would amount to $10 million more.

Officials delayed a vote on the rate increase on Wednesday as they sought more information.

Harris County, one of the most populous U.S. counties, is offering incentives worth an additional $3 to $5 per cubic yard because small trucks cannot profit at the rate for trucks with bigger capacity, said county engineer John Blount.

Paying more for trucks is critical to recruiting more away from their normal businesses, said Glen Nelson, owner of DNR Group, which specializes in disaster clean-up. Even so, he said he is earning half of what he did for Hurricane Katrina cleanup in 2005.

RAISING FEES “SMELLS”

Bruce Hotze, treasurer of Houston watchdog group Let the People Vote, said offering to increase payments to disposal companies “smells.”

“If they needed prices to go up it should have happened before the hurricane,” he said.

Texan cities Rockport and Corpus Christi, both near where Harvey made first landfall, said they will not pay more.

“You hold those contractors accountable to provide what they said they would provide for you,” said Mike Donoho, Rockport’s public works director.

Alabama-based CrowderGulf has not asked communities for higher pay because of the risk that those fees will not be reimbursed by FEMA, said Chief Operating Officer Ashley Ramsay-Naile. Some of its contracts state that CrowderGulf will not get paid for amounts that FEMA does not cover, she said.

FEMA reimburses 90 percent of debris expenses, and covers pay above contracted rates only if municipalities show it is justified, said FEMA spokeswoman Barb Sturner.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Houston; editing by Gary McWilliams and Marcy Nicholson)

Texas churches sue FEMA for disaster relief after Harvey

FILE PHOTO: A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employee waits for the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump during a visit at FEMA headquarters in Washington, U.S., August 4, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been sued by three Texas churches severely damaged in Hurricane Harvey, over what they called its policy of refusing to provide disaster relief to houses of worship because of their religious status.

In a complaint filed on Monday in federal court in Houston, the churches said they would like to apply for aid but it would be “futile” because FEMA’s public assistance program “categorically” excludes their claims, violating their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion.

They said FEMA’s ban on providing relief where at least half a building’s space is used for religious purposes, a policy also enforced after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, contradicts a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision making it easier for religious groups to get public aid.

That June 26 decision, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc v. Comer, said U.S. states must sometimes provide such aid even if their constitutions explicitly ban such funding.

Becket, a nonprofit that advocates for religious freedoms and represents the churches, said the same principle should apply to federal FEMA relief for Harvey victims.

“States and the federal government are different, but the First Amendment applies the same to both,” Daniel Blomberg, a lawyer for Becket, said in a phone interview. “The principle is that governments can’t discriminate on the basis of religious status, and that is unapologetically what FEMA is doing here.”

The three churches, he added, “need emergency repair, now.”

A FEMA spokeswoman said in an email it would be inappropriate to discuss pending litigation.

The Texas churches that sued are the Rockport First Assembly of God in Rockport, which lost its roof and steeple and suffered other structural damage, and the Harvest Family Church in Cypress and Hi-Way Tabernacle in Cleveland, which were flooded.

“This may be the first case this court will hear regarding Hurricane Harvey disaster relief, but it is surely not the last,” the complaint said.

The case is Harvest Family Church et al v Federal Emergency Management Agency et al, U.S, District Court, Southern District of Texas, No. 17-02662.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. officials say 450,000 in Texas likely to seek disaster aid

Residents use a truck to navigate through flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston, Texas, U.S. August 27, 2017.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. emergency management officials said on Monday they were expediting federal resources to Texas to help with rescue efforts after Hurricane Harvey swamped coastal areas of the state and forced 30,000 people to seek refuge in temporary shelters.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long said more than 450,000 people were expected to seek disaster assistance due to flooding after Harvey made landfall during the weekend before weakening to tropical storm status. President Donald Trump approved an emergency request on Monday for Louisiana, where severe flooding also was expected.

“We are not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot,” Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said at a news briefing early on Monday. “Harvey is still a dangerous and historic storm.”

Duke said federal agencies were focused at the moment on providing state and local officials in Texas with the assistance they need to continue search and rescue efforts to help those immediately affected by the flooding.

“Right now we are focused on rescue operations and will move into recovery operations later in the week,” she said. “But today we are deeply concerned with those in Houston and surrounding areas who are stranded and in need of immediate assistance.”

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long said federal officials were focused on a “life safety and life sustaining mission” at the moment, helping with things like swift water search and rescue efforts over the 30 to 50 counties possibly affected by the storm in Texas.

Brock said authorities were anticipating that some 30,000 people would be placed in temporary shelters due to the flooding.

He said FEMA was in the process of deploying life-saving commodities while the Army Corps of Engineers was helping work to restore power and other federal authorities were involved in ensuring communications interoperability between federal, state and local officials.

 

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Bill Trott)

 

North Carolina estimates $1.5 billion in hurricane damage to buildings

An aerial view shows flood waters after Hurricane Matthew in Lumberton, North Carolina

(Reuters) – North Carolina emergency officials have estimated that the destructive and deadly Hurricane Matthew caused $1.5 billion worth of damage to more than 100,000 homes, businesses and government buildings in the state.

The state’s Department of Public Safety said in a release issued on Saturday that county and state officials were still surveying the damage left behind by the storm.

The department also said more than 33,000 applications for individual assistance to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been filed and $12.4 million has been approved.

The death toll from Hurricane Matthew stands at 26 in North Carolina, with two more bodies recovered on Saturday as some flood waters receded.

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, which dumped more than a foot (30 cm) of water on inland North Carolina last week. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people in Haiti.

On Sunday, North Carolina’s public safety department forecast that all rivers would be below flood levels by October 24, though there was still major flooding in several areas.

In Princeville, believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, water surged to house roof lines on Thursday.

Statewide, power outages had fallen to 2,521 customers by Sunday afternoon, down from more than 800,000 customers without power last Sunday.

In one sign that the crisis was easing, the department only recorded three water rescues between Saturday and Sunday, bringing the total number of rescues to 2,336. The department said 32 shelters are open and are serving nearly 2,200 displaced people.

A total of 570 roads remained closed in the state because of damage from the flooding.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Scientists Say Odds Good Seattle Will Be Destroyed By Earthquake

A group of scientists say that a long overdue earthquake for the Pacific Northwest will strike in the next 50 years and will completely wipe out the city of Seattle.

A new report in the New Yorker highlights the problems of the Cascadia subduction zone which runs for 700 miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest from Cape Mendocino, California through Vancouver Island.  The zone is named after the Cascade Range of volcanic mountains that runs much of the same course about 100 miles inland.

The amount of time between quakes averages 243 years and because the last major quake took place in 1700, the fault is 72 years past the average date for a major quake.

Katheryn Schulz of the New Yorker spoke with Kenneth Murphy who oversees FEMA’s Region X which encompasses Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.  He said that when the “big one” hits…either a partial giving way of the southern part of the zone resulting in an 8.0-8.6 quake or a full-margin rupture between 8.7 and 9.2…there will no longer be a Pacific northwest.

“Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast,” Murphy told the New Yorker.  FEMA estimates say that 13,000 people will die in the quake and resulting tsunami.  At least 27,000 will suffer some kind of major injury.

Cities that are west of Interstate 5 include Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene and the capitals of Oregon (Salem) and Washington (Olympia).

“This is one time that I’m hoping all the science is wrong, and it won’t happen for another thousand years,” Murphy says.

Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State University and one of the world’s leading experts, says that the chance of the “big one” taking place in the next 50 years is 1 in 3.