Posted on 08/21/2018 4:55:13 AM PDT by cll
Two messages, scrawled in chalk on the same street 11 months apart.
One desperate. One hopeful.
What a difference a year makes.
Like almost all of Puerto Rico, the beachfront community of Punta Santiago was devastated by Hurricane Maria last September. The town, on the island's southeastern coast, is near where Maria made landfall on September 20, 2017.
The town's message then ...
With no electricity and dwindling supplies, anxious residents scribbled a plea to the world on the pavement at an intersection in town. "S.O.S," it read. "Necesitamos Agua/Comida." We need water and food.
An aid official snapped a photo of the message four days later while doing an aerial assessment of Maria's devastation. It was widely shared on social media and caught the attention of Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.
With the help of the National Guard, Rosselló helped deliver a shipment of supplies to Punta Santiago a week after Maria hit.
But the Category 4 hurricane left most of the island without power for months and caused billions of dollars in damages. And Punta Santiago, whose economy relies largely on tourism, faced a long rebuilding process.
... and now
Fast forward to Monday -- 11 months to the day after Maria struck. The same spot on the same street in Punta Santiago now displays a different message, one that may inspire travel: "Bienvenidos," or welcome. Residents gathered to write it on the asphalt, along with other words of hope and a message for the media: #CoverTheProgress.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Everyone has electricity back now and the power company is now moving to permanent repairs/replacements. That is, the grid was just patched up to give everyone electricity as “quickly” as possible, but in many if not most areas it was just jury-rigged.
Also, the power company, which is a public utility here, it’s in the process of being sold to private organizations, and the goal is to have several independent micro-grids instead of relying on a centralized system.
Ah yes, Bill DiBlowhard. What a waste of DNA.
I live in San Juan and she’s my mayor and I can certify that she is a first-class, marxist jerk.
I advocate total independence for PR ASAP. We are broke.
We don’t have any responsibility for their profligate debt. We would come closer to paying for california’s Socialist debt and I assure you that will never happen.
Impressive wall of honor, but I think you are arguing with a brick wall.
I served with some damn fine Soldiers, NCOs, Warrants, and officers from Puerto Rico over 32 years in the Army.
But I think your previous point is the story here. Puerto Ricans are learning the limits of government competence and cost of putting statists/collectivists in charge of the government.
I hope that impacts the candidates and voters over the next few elections on the island.
The elected government of Puerto Rico has been running a Ponzi Scheme for years.
When the people of Puerto Rico jail these politician crooks and confiscate their stolen goods, then we’ll know they are serious.
cll, from Bert’s previous snarky input/replies, I would venture to say he/she is a Trolling Democrat. I view a Trolling Democrat as a person who’s job to infiltrate websites to cause anger whereas a Democrat who is trolling is one who visits websites and through his/her own lack of intelligence displays his/her own hatred and stupidity. Rather simplistic definition it may seem. LOL Many peoples from PR have been honorable; their individual sacrifices are the embers of a good people.
I saw an exchange between a reporter and what I thought was the head of the truckers union, where the reporter challenged the union head about his men being on strike. Supposedly they were upset about some law passed previous to the storm, and wanted that repealed before coming back to work, storm or no storm. Maybe I misunderstood what was going on, though, I don’t follow things too closely there...
That was the common story we were hearing here, though, that some percentage of truckers were refusing to roll. Maybe that wasn’t true, from what you say...
CNN and MSNBC loved her Trump bashing.
I shudder to think of what happens in this region when the New Madrid fault (system) decides to let go again, esp. if the quake sequence is similar to 1811-1812. Few people realize the damaging quakes went on for months, with a really big one starting the recognized "period of quakes" on Dec. 16, 1811, another almost as big on Jan. 23, 1812, and as USGS describes it:
Several destructive shocks occurred on February 7, the last of which equaled or surpassed the magnitude of any previous event. The town of New Madrid was destroyed. At St. Louis, many houses were damaged severely and their chimneys were thrown down...
) Even that wasn't the end of it; damaging aftershocks continued for months.
Eh, typo, NOT a smiley!
BTW, are all the roads in PR in passable shape now?
Thanks for that information!
Great to know that the electricity is back for all and that it is moving to private corporations.
Good for Puerto Rico!
Actually, the same thing can be said about our federal and many state governments. Yet, the American people keep putting many right back in office.
Touché.
fortunately we spend zero on state budgets. Our federal debt is contracted for federal uses only such as paying people not to riot and take the stuff of the elites.
Yeah, passable, but just that. Passable. Most are in need of repair still (not that they were very good before the storms). Many traffic lights and illumination posts remain down as well.
That was just the two usual rabble rousers (Rodríguez and Falcón) who appear every now and then and claim to represent all truckers through their “Amplio Frente de Camioneros”, but the only real driver unions are the Teamsters and a few other legitimate syndicates, and their guys showed up to work.
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