Tag Archives: Power Outage

Puerto Rico oversight panel seeks outside manager for power utility PREPA

Workers from Montana-based Whitefish Energy Holdings help fix the island's power grid, damaged during Hurricane Maria in September, in Manati, Puerto Rico October 25, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez

By Nick Brown

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The federal board overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances said on Wednesday it intends to appoint an outside manager to lead the island’s power utility, PREPA, in cleanup efforts following Hurricane Maria.

But Puerto Rico’s government is pushing back on the move, and may challenge it in court as an unauthorized power grab, according to a source familiar with Governor Ricardo Rossello’s thinking.

The board, in a written statement, announced “intent to appoint” retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Noel Zamot as PREPA’s chief transformation officer.

Zamot, who has worked with the board in a separate capacity, would be responsible for expediting reconstruction efforts, the board said.

U.S. lawmakers have criticized PREPA’s hiring of Montana-based Whitefish Energy Holdings to help fix the island’s power grid, decimated when Hurricane Maria made landfall on Sept. 20. Some Congress members were concerned that Whitefish was hired without a bidding process, and despite the fact that the two-year-old firm had only two full-time employees.

The controversy reawakened feelings among lawmakers and Puerto Rican investors that officials at PREPA are not competent to lead the quasi-public utility, whose $9 billion debt load pushed it into bankruptcy in July.

The storm cut power to the entire island. As of Monday, just 18 percent had been restored, according to U.S. Department of Energy data.

The board’s announcement on Wednesday was also reigniting an ongoing power struggle between Puerto Rico’s government and the board appointed last year to manage the island’s precarious finances.

Created under a federal Puerto Rico rescue law known as PROMESA, the board is to help Puerto Rico regain access to capital markets after it filed the largest-ever U.S. government bankruptcy in May.

The island, trudging through a decade-long recession, has $72 billion in debt and near-insolvent public health and pension systems.

Rossello and the board have clashed, including on austerity measures like public employee furloughs.

In a statement on Wednesday, Rossello said the board’s powers are limited by law to financial issues, while management of island agencies “rests exclusively on democratically elected officials.”

“Puerto Rico will be zealous in defending the people from any action that seeks to undermine this process,” Rossello said in a statement in Spanish.

The source familiar with Rossello’s thinking told Reuters his administration may challenge in court the board’s authority to appoint an outside manager at PREPA.

“It might have to be challenged in court, and the government is willing to go that way,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak to media and requested anonymity.

Rossello’s administration separately has its own concerns about Whitefish and the lack of transparency surrounding its PREPA contract, and plans to investigate those issues, the source said.

(Reporting by Nick Brown; Editing by James Dalgleish and David Gregorio)

Trump says he will work with Congress on more aid for Puerto Rico

Trump says he will work with Congress on more aid for Puerto Rico

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will work with the U.S. Congress to approve grants and loans to help rebuild Puerto Rico after it was devastated by Hurricane Maria a month ago.

Already mired in debt after years of recession, the U.S. territory faces storm-related damages that some estimates have pegged as high as $95 billion, and has asked the federal government to make exceptions to rules that typically require states and local governments to shoulder part of the cost of recovery.

Trump did not give any specifics about how much money the government may give or loan to the cash-strapped territory, home to 3.4 million U.S. citizens.

“I have given my blessing to Congress, and Congress is working with you and your representatives on coming up with a plan and a payment plan and how it’s all going to be funded. Because you are talking about some substantial numbers,” Trump said to Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello at the beginning of an Oval Office meeting.

Trump and some of his top aides suggested last week that there would be limits to how much help Puerto Rico could expect from Washington. But on Thursday, the president’s remarks were broadly supportive.

The hurricane laid waste to the island’s power grid, destroying homes, roads and other vital infrastructure. The bankrupt territory is still struggling to provide basic services like running water. An oversight board charged with resolving Puerto Rico’s debt crisis has said the island’s government would run out of money by the end of the month without help.

Trump emphasized that repayment of federal loans and other storm-related debt owed by Puerto Rico would come before repayment of the island’s existing $72 billion in debt.

“Any money that’s put in by people – whether it’s public or private – they’re going to want to come in first position,” Trump said.

“We’re going to coming before – far before – any existing debt that’s on the island,” he said.

Trump declined to opine on whether the process would be easier if Puerto Rico were a state rather than a territory – a hot-button political issue on the island.

“You’ll get me into trouble with that question,” he told a reporter.

SENATE TO VOTE

While in Washington, Rossello also met with Senate leaders. The Senate is expected to vote in coming days on an aid package that includes $18.7 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has been helping Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands recover from three massive hurricanes.

Some senators would like to see more funds added to that package, Senator John Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, told reporters.

Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida who has been deeply involved in discussions over the aid, said earlier on Thursday that he wants to tweak the bill so the island could more quickly access funds.

Congress is expected to consider another aid package by the end of December, but that could be too late for the island, which currently has no tax revenue, Rubio said.

“I know from experience the further away we get from these hurricanes, the less of a sense of urgency there is,” Rubio said.

Rossello has asked the federal government for approval to use disaster aid to cover a broad range of costs. He has also asked the White House and Congress for at least $4.6 billion in block grants and other types of funding.

“The reality is that we still need to do a lot more for the people of Puerto Rico and that’s why we’re meeting,” Rossello said.

“This is not over, not over by a long shot.”

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Makini Brice and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Dan Grebler and Rosalba O’Brien)

One dead as Storm Ophelia batters Ireland

A lighthouse is seen as storm Ophelia approaches South Stack in Anglesey, Wales, Britain, October 16, 2017

By Clodagh Kilcoyne

LAHINCH, Ireland (Reuters) – A woman was killed as Tropical Storm Ophelia battered Ireland’s southern coast on Monday, knocking down trees and power lines and whipping up 10-metre (30-foot) waves.

Over 230,000 homes and businesses were without electricity with more outages expected and almost 150 flights were canceled from Ireland’s two main airports at Dublin and Shannon.

The woman in her 50s was killed by a tree falling on her car in the southeastern county of Waterford, police said. A female passenger in her 70s was injured. Police corrected an earlier report that the victim was in her 20s.

The storm, downgraded from a hurricane overnight, was the worst to hit Ireland in half a century. It made landfall after 10:40 a.m. (0940 GMT), the Irish National Meteorological Service said, with winds as strong as 176 kph (110 mph) hitting the most southerly tip of the country and flooding likely.

“These gusts are life-threatening. Do not be out there,” the chairman of Ireland’s National Emergency Coordination Group, Sean Hogan, said on national broadcaster RTE.

Schools, hospitals and public transport services were closed and the armed forces were sent to bolster flood defences. Photos on social media showed the roof of a stand at Cork City soccer club’s Turner’s Cross stadium had collapsed.

Hurricane Ophelia image captured by NASA is seen in space, October 14, 2017 in this still obtained from social media.

Hurricane Ophelia image captured by NASA is seen in space, October 14, 2017 in this still obtained from social media. NASA SPORT/ via REUTERS

Hurricane force winds are expected in every part of the country, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, advising people to stay indoors. The transport minister said it was not safe to drive.

“While the storm in some parts of the country is not yet that bad, it is coming your way,” Varadkar told a news conference.

Britain’s meteorological service put an Amber Weather Warning into effect for Northern Ireland from 1400-2100 GMT, saying the storm posed a danger to life and was likely to cause transport cancellations, power cuts and flying debris.

“Impactful weather” is expected in other western and northern parts of the United Kingdom, it said.

British media are comparing Ophelia to the “Great Storm” of 1987, which subjected parts of the United Kingdom to hurricane strength winds 30 years ago to the day.

The storm is expected to move towards western Scotland overnight.

The Irish government said the storm was likely to be the worst since Hurricane Debbie, which killed 11 in Ireland in 1961.

It is likely to pass close to a west of Ireland golf course owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been planning a wall to protect its greens from coastal erosion.

Similar sized storms in the past have changed the shape of stretches of the Irish coastline, climatologists said.

 

(Additional reporting and writing by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Robin Pomeroy)

 

Hurricane Nate threatens U.S. central Gulf Coast after killing 25

Heavy machinery is used to remove mud from a highway that connects with the south of the country collapsed by Storm Nate in Casa Mata, Costa Rica October 6, 2017. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate

By Oswaldo Rivas

MANAGUA (Reuters) – Hurricane Nate may strengthen on Saturday, threatening to hit the U.S. central Gulf Coast with strong winds and storm surges after it killed at least 25 people in Central America.

New Orleans evacuated some residents from areas outside its levee system as Nate, a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest on a five-category scale used by meteorologists, churned towards the central Gulf of Mexico.

“Nate is at our doorstep or will be soon,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, adding that the winds could cause significant power outages, and storm surges are projected to be six to nine feet (1.8 to 2.7 meters) high.

“We have been through this many, many times. There is no need to panic,” Landrieu told a news conference.

The storm brushed by Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, home to beach resorts such as Cancun and Playa del Carmen, as it headed north, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

With maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (130 kmh), Nate was about 345 miles (550 km) south-southeast of the Mississippi river and expected to strengthen before it makes landfall, the NHC said.

A state of emergency was declared for 29 Florida counties and states – Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi – as well as the New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The NHC issued a hurricane watch from Grand Isle, Louisiana to the Alabama-Florida border.

“By Saturday noon you should be in your safe place,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told a news conference. “This is a fast-moving storm and we must begin preparing now.”

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil production was offline ahead of the storm, and more oil companies halted operations on Friday.

On Saturday morning, Nate was moving north-northwest at 22 miles per hour (35 kmh), a fast pace which if maintained could mean the storm does less damage when it hits land.

CENTRAL AMERICA DEATHS

The storm doused Central America with heavy rains on Thursday, killing at least 12 people in Nicaragua, nine in Costa Rica, two in Honduras and two in El Salvador.

Thousands were forced to evacuate their homes and Costa Rica’s government declared a state of emergency.

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis urged residents to remain vigilant, noting rains would likely resume.

In Honduras, residents wondered whether they would have to flee. Norma Chavez and her two children anxiously watched a river rise outside their home in Tegucigalpa, the capital.

“We are worried that it will grow more and carry away the house,” said Chavez, 45.

Through Monday, Nate is expected to produce two to four inches (5 to 10 cm) more rain in eastern Yucatan and western Cuba and three to six inches (8 to 15 inches) in the U.S. central Gulf Coast.

About 71 percent of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil production and 53 percent of natural gas output is offline ahead of Nate’s arrival, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said on Friday.

Oil companies have evacuated staff from 66 platforms and five drilling rigs, it said. Oil production equaling 1.24 million barrels of crude per day is offline, according to BSEE.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; editing by Alexander Smith)

In Puerto Rico, lives depend on volunteer doctors and diesel generators

In Puerto Rico, lives depend on volunteer doctors and diesel generators

By Robin Respaut and Nick Brown

OROCOVIS, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – At a community center in Orocovis, an isolated agricultural town of 23,000 in the mountains of central Puerto Rico, six oxygen-dependent patients drew breath with the help of the diesel generator powering their equipment.

Then the generator sputtered as if it might die.

A dozen volunteer doctors and medical students from San Juan started assessing which patient should be transported first – in the town’s only ambulance – to a hospital an hour away, and which could survive without oxygen for a short time.

Javier Sevilla Rodriguez, a medical student, had only one way to make the agonizing decisions. He removed one woman’s oxygen tube, watching carefully to see how her blood-oxygen level responded.

“This is how we are doing triage right now,” he said.

Two weeks after hurricane Maria, many of Puerto Rico’s sick, frail and elderly are teetering on the edge, one faulty generator away from missing dialysis treatments or having critical medications go bad.

With nearly the entire island still lacking electricity, hospitals, clinics, and shelters are operating on aging generators not intended for long-term use and powered by scarce diesel fuel. Water is still not available for nearly half the population and supplies of medicines and oxygen are running low.

And residents still can’t call for help across vast swaths of the island because of widespread cellular network outages.

Many regions in the interior of the island, like this one, are only now seeing relief efforts, amid a plodding U.S. disaster response to this island of 3.4 million American citizens. The U.S. territory’s battered economy and infrastructure has magnified the humanitarian crisis wrought by the strongest hurricane to hit here in nine decades.

In Orocovis, even the sickest patients have gone largely without medical care since the storm. So the doctors worked quickly throughout the day, conferring with caregivers and writing prescriptions they would take back to San Juan to fill and then dispatch by messenger.

Now at the community center, their last stop before leaving town, time ran out.

With a loud clunk, the sounds of humming oxygen machines stopped and were replaced by a chorus of beeps and chirps warning that power had been cut.

The generator had failed.

A CALL FOR DOCTORS

The medical convoy that visited Orocovis is an entirely volunteer operation, organized by physician Carlos Mellado. After Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, blocking roads and crippling power and communications networks, Mellado asked other doctors at his clinic to cover for him and threw himself into hurricane relief work.

On the first day, he headed to Canovanas, east of the capital, checking on people at shelters. He promised to fill many patients’ prescriptions and send back the medications.

The next day, he went to Vieques, an island off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast, and found diabetics without insulin, heart patients under extreme stress and crucial treatments interrupted by power outages.

When Mellado returned to San Juan, he stopped by the local radio station, which in the days after the storm, had become a trusted source of information for Puerto Ricans living without communications. Invited to speak to listeners, he called for other physicians willing to join him.

Now, Mellado has a core group of 18 physicians, who rotate between the trips and their own practices, and a growing list of more doctors who want to join. Each morning, he takes out a paper map of the island covered with notes about where he’s been. The doctors pick a town and go.

The convoys have no official ties, but Mellado reports each evening on what the doctors found to Puerto Rican and federal officials in San Juan. Sometimes Puerto Rico’s housing department coordinates deliveries of the drugs back to the towns, and a pharmacy chain donates medications for patients without insurance.

The government’s death count from the storm more than doubled this week to 36. But doctors across the island believe the total would be far higher if it included people with chronic conditions who died because they lacked access to medical care.

“For these critically ill patients, if everything fails, they don’t have too much time,” said Humberto Guzman, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and member of the medical convoy. “People are dying.”

‘WE CANNOT WAIT’

In Orocovis, after the generator failed, the doctors looked for a quick fix. Guzman ran up the street to the town’s shuttered urgent care facility.

There, he found a half-dozen oxygen tanks that locals said had been delivered the day before. Each could provide about a day’s worth of oxygen to a patient.

The tanks were quickly moved to the community center, where the doctors taught family members to use them. But before that became necessary, the generator sprang back to life.

The doctors packed up to leave, assuring patients’ families that they could switch to the tanks if the generator failed again.

“In every town right now, there are moments like this happening,” Guzman said. “That’s why you need people like us to just go. We cannot wait.”

(This version of the story corrects to fix pronoun in paragraph 4 and change “country” to “island” in paragraph 7)

(Reporting by Robin Respaut and Nick Brown; Editing by Sue Horton and Brian Thevenot)

As Trump set to visit Puerto Rico, 95 percent lack power

As Trump set to visit Puerto Rico, 95 percent lack power

By Robin Respaut and Gabriel Stargardter

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is set to make his first visit to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory, and is likely to face more criticism of his handling of the disaster as the vast majority of inhabitants lack power and phone service and are scrambling for food, clean water and fuel.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz led the attack on the administration’s response on Friday, criticizing an official’s description of relief efforts as a “good news story” and urging Trump to act more decisively. Trump fired back at Cruz on Twitter, accusing her of “poor leadership.”

It is not clear if the two will meet during Trump’s visit.

“She (Cruz) has been invited to participate in the events tomorrow, and we hope those conversations will happen and that we can all work together to move forward,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Monday.

Trump will spend “significant time” on the island. He is due in Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with people affected by Sunday’s mass shooting.

For 72-year-old Angel Negroni of Juana Matos, the situation has begun to improve as flood waters receded from his neighborhood, located 20 minutes from San Juan.

Locals could occasionally get spotty cellular service, an improvement from the communication vacuum of days earlier. And he can trade his neighborhood’s restored municipal water for ice made by a friend’s generator-powered freezer.

“It’s better now,” said Negroni, while standing on his covered porch on Monday, cooking fish on a propane-powered camping stove. “We’re OK.”

At least 5.4 percent of customers in Puerto Rico had their power restored by mid-morning on Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Department, with San Juan’s airport and marine terminal and several hospitals back on the power grid. It said the head of Puerto Rico’s power utility expects 15 percent of electricity customers to have power restored within the next two weeks.

Mobile phone service is still elusive. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Monday 88.3 percent of cellphone sites – which transmit signals to create a cellular network – were out of service, virtually unchanged from 88.8 percent on Sunday.

FEMA Administrator Brock Long on a trip to the island on Monday said things were improving with traffic moving and businesses reopening.

“I didn’t see anybody in a life-threatening situation at all,” he told reporters. “We have a long way to go in recovery,” adding that rebuilding Puerto Rico is “going to be a Herculean effort.”

GAS FLOWING

Nearly two weeks after the fiercest hurricane to hit the island in 90 years, everyday life was still severely curtailed by the destruction. The ramping up of fuel supplies should allow more Puerto Ricans to operate generators and travel more freely.

“We’ve been increasing the number of gas stations that are open,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said at a news briefing, with more than 720 of the island’s 1,100 gas stations now up and running.

Puerto Rico relies on fuel supplies shipped from the mainland United States and distribution has been disrupted by the bad state of roads.

Within the next couple of days, Rossello expects 500,000 barrels of diesel and close to 1 million barrels of gasoline to arrive on the island. All of Puerto Rico’s primary ports have reopened but many still have restrictions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

At least four tankers carrying fuel are waiting to unload with two more on the way, according to Thomson Reuters shipping data.

“The flow is coming, gasoline is getting here,” Rossello said. “We have been able to reduce the time that it takes to get gasoline and diesel at different stations.”

Federal and local authorities were working together to keep 50 hospitals operational and Rossello said the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort would arrive in Puerto Rico between Tuesday and Wednesday.

RUNNING OUT OF CASH

As it tries to get back on its feet, Puerto Rico is in danger of running out of cash in a matter of weeks because the economy has come to a halt in the hurricane’s aftermath, Rossello told the local El Nuevo Dia newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

After filing for the largest U.S. local government bankruptcy on record in May, Puerto Rico owes about $72 billion to creditors and another $45 billion or so in pension benefits to retired workers.

What little cash it has is now being diverted to emergency response while it works to secure aid from the federal government. The grinding halt to the economy will delay a fiscal recovery plan and negotiations with creditors.

“There is no cash on hand. We have made a huge effort to get $2 billion in cash,” Rossello said in the interview. “But let me tell you what $2 billion means when you have zero collection: it’s basically a month government’s payroll, a little bit more.”

Trump’s administration is preparing to ask Congress for $13 billion in aid for Puerto Rico and other areas hit by natural disasters, congressional sources said. The island’s recovery will likely cost more than $30 billion.

(Reporting by Robin Respaut, Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Nicholas Brown and Carlos Barria in SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico; Doina Chiacu, Roberta Rampton, Tim Ahmann and Makini Brice in WASHINGTON; Marianna Parraga in HOUSTON; Rodrigo Campos and Herb Lash in NEW YORK and Esha Vaish in BENGALURU; Writing by Bill Rigby and Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Bill Trott and Mary Milliken)

For desperate Puerto Ricans, fuel a precious commodity

FILE PHOTO: People line up to buy gasoline at a gas station after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria, in San Juan, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. Picture taken September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez/File Photo

By Robin Respaut, Dave Graham and Jessica Resnick-Ault

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Puerto Rico resident Marangelly Garcia waited eight hours for diesel to fuel her family’s generator on Monday, but the supply ran out before she got to the front of the line.

The beauty products distributor tried again Tuesday, waking up at 4 a.m. But the line in her municipality of Guaynabo, near San Juan, was still formidable.

Her latest strategy to get a place in line: “I’m going to be camping tonight.”

With Puerto Rico’s electric grid in shambles after Hurricane Maria, gasoline and diesel have become liquid gold in this U.S. territory. The island’s 3.4 million residents urgently need it to fuel their automobile tanks and power generators to light their homes and businesses.

But like so many other necessities here, the distribution of fuel is reliant on a transportation network crippled by the storm.

Puerto Rico gets most of its fuel sent by ship from the United States. But restrictions at its ports, with one closed and another operating only during the daytime, has limited shipping. Meanwhile, tanker trucks have had difficulty navigating the island’s blocked and damaged roads.

U.S. Air Force Colonel Michael Valle, on hand for relief efforts in San Juan, said he was most concerned about “the level of desperation” that could arise if fuel distribution did not return to normal within a couple of weeks.

Complicating those efforts is the shutdown of Puerto Rico’s primary fuel storage point. Known as the Yabucoa terminal, the facility is located in the hard-hit southeastern part of the island, where Maria first made landfall. The terminal was closed prior to the storm and has yet to re-open, according to Buckeye Partners, the terminal operator, which said a full assessment of the facility is under way.

Yabucoa can store up to 4.6 million barrels of crude oil, gasoline or products like fuel oil and diesel needed for power generation. That storage point is used for distribution for other islands in the Caribbean as well.

Adding to Puerto Rico’s difficulties is the sudden surge in demand for diesel to power generators. A shipping broker who was not authorized to speak to the press said concerns about diesel supplies were growing.

The few gas stations operating in Puerto Rico have attracted miles-long lines of cars, where drivers wait seven hours or longer in queues that snake through neighborhoods, up highway exit ramps and onto freeways.

“People here are going crazy trying to find gas,” said motorist Peter Matos, 60, of Yauco, a city in the southwestern part of the island. “I have about half a tank left.”

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello told mayors he will work with U.S. authorities to improve fuel distribution, said Israel Morales, a communications advisor to municipalities in Puerto Rico.

The day after the storm hit, Rossello advised mayors that there was sufficient fuel, Morales said, but the problem was distribution as it was stored at the ports and terminals on the island, and could not be easily routed to areas that needed it.

The island’s residents use about 155,000 barrels of fuel a day, less than 1 percent of the 19 million barrels consumed daily in the United States. Puerto Rico has no operating refineries, as the last one idled in 2009.

The good news is that the Port of San Juan, the island’s primary port, has experienced minimal damage, according to Jose Luis Ayala, chairman and director general of Puerto Rico’s division of shipping company Crowley Maritime Corp.

He said ships carrying fuel were moved south out of Hurricane Maria’s path, and were able to get to the Port of San Juan once the terminal re-opened on Friday.

“Even though there was some damage, it was functional,” he said. According to Thomson Reuters shipping data, three vessels were unloading fuel at San Juan as of Tuesday, while three others were waiting for opportunities to unload as well.

Large convoys of fuel trucks were seen traveling the highways on Monday, the first time in several days those vehicles were out in force. Hospitals and fuel stations are taking deliveries of diesel via trucks escorted by armed guards.

As of Monday, 91 trucks were supplying fuel and 108 filling stations were being guarded by the U.S. National Guard, according to a Tuesday statement from the island’s Secretary of Public Affairs, Ramon Rosario Cortes.

(Reporting By Robin Respaut and David Graham in San Juan, and Jessica Resnick Ault in New York; Additional reporting by Ricardo Ortiz in San Juan and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Marla Dickerson)

Morningside team arrives in Florida for disaster relief and YOU made it happen!

Mondo and Ricky in Immokalee, Florida on Disaster Relief visit.

By Kami Klein

Our team from Morningside is now outside of Naples Florida, in Immokalee, one of the hardest hit communities of Hurricane Irma.  With no power, lack of good drinking water and warm meals for families, the people in this community have been devastated but have gathered together as family and are working together to recover from this massive disaster.   

Mondo DeLaVega, Ricky Bakker, Tammy Sue Bakker, Daina Martin are joined by our camera crew David Zorob, Hamilton Neumann and Adam Armstrong on the ground in Florida ready to help distribute the food, water bottles and the precious leatherbound MEV Bibles to people who are hurting so much.  These donations would NOT have been possible without your generous donations and compassion!  

Immokalee, Florida is the center of the region’s agricultural industries in Florida and home to many immigrant and migrant families who work the vast fields that produce huge amounts of fresh produce to the United States.  Crops include cucumbers, bell peppers, citrus fruits and about 90% of the nation’s tomatoes that are harvested during the winter months.  

The Morningside team is working with Pastor Frank Rincon of Bethel International Assemblies of God.  This church has been the heart of a community that has been ravaged by Hurricane Irma.  In addition to  cooking and serving hot meals by the thousands, they have been responsible for distributing blankets, sleeping bags, diapers, pillows, bed sheets, coolers, T-shirts, towels, water filter kits, women’s essentials and tarps for roofs.  

“Volunteers are coming in from all of the United States to help here!” said Ricky Bakker, one of the Morningside team members. “It is amazing how people are coming together to help this community!”

The Morningside truck arrived soon after the team in Immokalee.  Hundreds of buckets have been unloaded and volunteers are ready to pass out 90 day buckets of food, rice, beans, dehydrated bananas, apples and milk along with water filter bottles from Seychelle to the many needy people in that community.  Ricky added that the rice and beans from donations to our Disaster Relief fund can stretch 3 or 4 thousand meals to 5 or 6 thousand hot meals for the families in Immokalee and surrounding areas.  “We don’t just want to bring food and water to them, we want to help offer a little bit of normal, add a little bit of comfort.”

You are the hands and feet of Jesus on the ground, and you are making a tremendous difference!  The Morningside team is there representing you and spreading the love of God to people who are desperate to hear it!  

Mondo said it best in a recent Facebook live post on The Jim Bakker Show Facebook page.    

“Thank you for being a part of the blessing of relief for these people so hard hit by disaster!  Because of your donations and faith you have given us the opportunity to serve this community!  Thank you for believing in our ministry!  Thank you for making this happen!”  

There is so much devastation here in the world today!  Hurricanes and flooding in Texas, in Florida, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico.  There are thousands of homeless people in Mexico due to earthquakes.  You ARE making an impact!  Your gifts are saving lives and helping to rebuild communities with your love and donations.  If you wish to give to our Disaster Relief and help be a part of the work that God asks of us, please give now to the Disaster Relief Fund! 

Matthew 25:42-45 MEV   42 For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’44 “Then they also will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not serve You?’45 “He will answer, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it not for one of the least of these, you did it not for Me.’

Stay tuned for more updates on our Disaster Relief Team out on the field and watch for more Facebook live reports!

Death toll from overheated Florida nursing home rises to 10

FILE PHOTO: The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills is seen in Hollywood, north of Miami, Florida, U.S., September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Innerarity/File Photo

(Reuters) – A 10th elderly patient at a Miami-area nursing home has died after she was exposed to sweltering heat in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, police said on Thursday.

The resident of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills died on Wednesday, police in Hollywood, Florida, said in a statement, without giving details.

Police have opened a criminal investigation into the deaths at the center, which city officials have said continued to operate with little or no air conditioning after power was cut off by Irma, which struck the state on Sept. 10.

Julie Allison, a lawyer for the nursing home, did not respond to a request for comment. Calls to the Rehabilitation Center went unanswered.

Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration suspended the center’s license on Wednesday and terminated its participation in Medicaid, the federal-state healthcare program for the poor, disabled and elderly.

Medical personnel at the home had delayed calling 911 and residents were not quickly transported to an air-conditioned hospital across the street, the agency said in a statement.

Patients taken to the hospital had temperatures ranging from 107 Fahrenheit to 109.9 Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius to 43.3 Celsius), it said. Average human body temperature is 98.6 Fahrenheit (37 Celsius).

Staff at the center also made many late entries to patients’ medical records that inaccurately depicted what had happened, the agency’s statement said.

One late entry said a patient was resting in bed with even and unlabored breathing, even though the person had already died, the statement said.

Last week, the agency ordered the center not to take new admissions and suspended it from taking part in Medicaid.

Irma was one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record and killed at least 84 people in its path across the Caribbean and the U.S. mainland.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Marcy Nicholson)

About 1.5 million, mostly in Florida, without power in Irma’s wake

About 1.5 million, mostly in Florida, without power in Irma's wake

By Zachary Fagenson

MIAMI (Reuters) – About 1.5 million homes and businesses in Florida and Georgia remained without power on Friday after Hurricane Irma, including 46 of Florida’s nearly 700 nursing homes caught in the deadly storm’s path.

Irma, which ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record before striking the U.S. mainland as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 10, killed at least 84 people. Several hard-hit Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, suffered more than half the fatalities.

Florida Power & Light, owned by NextEra Energy Inc <NEE.N> and the state’s biggest electric company, said it was working aggressively to restore power to the 23 percent of its customers still in the dark.

The utility has never before had to deal with a storm affecting its entire service territory, company spokesman Rob Gould said.

“It will go down as one of the largest and most complex restoration efforts in history,” he said. “Now we are literally into the house-to-house combat mode.”

The storm’s death toll grew to at least 33 people in Florida after a woman died of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator in Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach Post newspaper reported.

A total of eight others died in Georgia and the Carolinas. North Carolina reported its first Irma death on Friday, saying a man there also had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator.

Eight elderly people died earlier this week after being exposed to the heat inside a nursing home north of Miami that had been left without full air conditioning after the hurricane hit.

The deaths at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, now under police and state investigation, stirred outrage over what many saw as a preventable tragedy and heightened concerns about the vulnerability of the state’s large elderly population amid widespread, lingering power outages.

“The governor will continue to review all ways to ensure tragedies like this never happen again,” Lauren Schenone, a spokeswoman for Florida Governor Rick Scott, said in a statement.

Florida’s healthcare agency ordered the nursing home on Thursday to be suspended from the state Medicaid program. The center said it plans to the fight the state’s efforts to shut it down.

A timeline of events issued by the nursing home shows administrators repeatedly called Florida Power & Light and state officials after a transformer powering its air conditioning system went out during the storm on Sunday. The center said it was informed that service would soon be fixed.

Nursing home operators had put out cooling units and fans in an effort to maintain reasonable temperatures and added additional cooling units supplied by a hospital next door on Tuesday.

But it was not until multiple patients began experiencing health emergencies, which promoted the evacuation of the center, that the utility company arrived to make the repair, the nursing home said.

However, officials at the Florida Department of Health said the facility did not indicate the extent of its problems nor requested assistance in reports to a state monitoring database. In its status reports, the center indicated that its cooling system was operational for much of the time, according to the state.

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Detroit, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Scott DiSavino in New York and Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina)