Tag Archives: U.S. territory

Puerto Rico to be given access to $8.2 billion in blocked disaster aid funding: Politico

(Reuters) – Puerto Rico will be allowed access to $8.2 billion in blocked disaster aid funding by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Politico reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. territory has undergone hundreds of earthquakes and aftershocks since Dec. 28 that have caused structural damage to thousands of buildings and homes.

The quakes have worsened Puerto Rico’s woes as it continues to recover from Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, which killed about 3,000 people, and goes through a bankruptcy process.

“Now that a full financial monitoring team is assembled and active, we can move forward with confidence that these disaster recovery funds will reach those who need them the most,” the Politico report quoted an unnamed HUD official as saying.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested in July last year that Puerto Rico could not be trusted to manage federal aid, saying it was “in the hands of incompetent people and very corrupt people.”

Access to the funds after all may come as a relief for Puerto Rico after rating agency Moody’s Investors Service said on Tuesday that recent earthquakes posed a setback for the Caribbean island in terms of its economic recovery and ability to retain residents and businesses.

The development followed a letter http://bit.ly/2NtywlS on Tuesday in which Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and several other Senate Democrats asked the Trump administration to approve full aid to Puerto Rico.

The HUD did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular working hours.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

After quake, Puerto Rico governor says power should be back by Monday

By Ricardo Ortiz

YAUCO, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez said power should be fully restored across the island by Monday after the worst earthquake in over a century knocked out the U.S. territory’s biggest generating plant and left nearly all its 3 million residents without electricity.

Two days after the earthquake, only half of the Caribbean island had power, Puerto Rico’s top energy executive, José Ortiz, said on Thursday.

The Caribbean island’s largest power plant, Costa Sur, could remain off line for a year or more due to earthquake damage, Ortiz told a news conference, evoking memories of lengthy power outages following back-to-back hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico in 2017.

But power should be completely restored by Monday as other generating plants came back online, Ortiz, executive director of public power utility PREPA, and Vázquez said at the news conference.

“Our projection, as you have heard, is that during the weekend, or Monday, we will have 100% of customers with energy services,” said Vázquez, who took office in August.

Tuesday’s 6.4 magnitude quake and 5.6 aftershock killed at least one person and destroyed or damaged about 300 homes in the south of the island.

The earthquake added to Puerto Rico’s woes as it continues to recover from Hurricanes Maria and Irma, which killed nearly 3,000 people in 2017, and go through a bankruptcy process.

Utility crews scrambled to fix downed lines on Thursday while residents relied on backyard generators to power lights, refrigerators and phone chargers.

Many people on the south of the island set up house outside, fearful another quake could collapse their homes.

“We are here trying to survive the situation, you know?” said Luis Rodriguez Melendez, sitting on a bed set up under a camping canopy in the hard-hit town of Yauco.

The quake shut down Puerto Rico’s power system as generating plants automatically went off line and Costa Sur, which supplied up to a third of electricity, suffered severe damage.

Puerto Rico needs remaining plants to operate at or near capacity to meet peak demand, Ortiz said.

Vázquez initially said power would be fully restored within 24 to 48 hours, but additional damage to plants and infrastructure was discovered, slowing the process.

“It’s a difficult moment,” said Yauco resident Bethzaida Lopez Pacheco, also at the shelter. “The fact that there’s no electricity makes it difficult for the elderly with conditions to manage, to manage their food, for people to care for their children.”

Ortiz did not rule out building a new power plant to replace the ageing Costa Sur facility. He also raised the prospect of bringing in temporary generators with aid from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency and said PREPA was looking for a company to supply them.

(Reporting by Ricardo Ortiz in Yauco, Puerto Rico; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta and Andrew Hay; Editing by Scott Malone, Richard Chang and Leslie Adler)

Most Puerto Ricans without power, many sleep outdoors after quakes

By Ricardo Ortiz

GUANICA, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – More than half of Puerto Rico’s 3 million people remained without power on Wednesday and thousands slept outdoors after earthquakes toppled homes on the Caribbean island and raised fears more could collapse.

Tuesday’s quakes, including the most powerful one to strike the U.S. territory in 102 years, killed at least one person and destroyed or damaged about 300 homes. A state of emergency was declared.

The south of the island was hardest hit, dozens of homes collapsing in towns like Yauco, Guanica and Guayanilla during a 6.4 magnitude earthquake and 5.6 aftershock.

Tremors shook the island on Wednesday and thousands slept outdoors or in their cars, fearful their homes would collapse in the event of another major event.

“Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, everything fell on top of us,” said Josefina Pacheco who ran out onto the street during the quakes. “It’s really hard to see so many houses around you on the ground.”

Power was not expected to be restored to the whole island until the weekend after quakes knocked out its main generating facility, the Costa Sur plant, and damaged other energy infrastructure.

It will take at least a year to repair Costa Sur, which up until Tuesday supplied about a quarter of Puerto Rico’s power, the head of the AEE electricity agency, Jose Ortiz, told El Nuevo Dia newspaper.

About 600,000 of the island’s 1.5 million customers had power on Wednesday, up from 100,000 on Tuesday night, and the island was generating 955 megawatts of electricity, well short of the 2,300 megawatts it needed, AEE said on Twitter.

The power outages brought back memories of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, when Puerto Ricans endured lengthy blackouts following a disaster that killed nearly 3,000 people.

On Wednesday, about 24% of the population still had no running water and more than 2,200 people left homeless had taken refuge in government shelters, said Carlos Acevedo, commissioner of disaster agency NMEAD.

In Guanica, supermarket owner Santo Manuel Ruiz Pietri began cleaning up collapsed shelves and surveying structural damage to his building.

“It was nearly complete devastation at our Guanica location, inside and outside,” said Ruiz Pietri, estimating the damage to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY

The earthquakes followed a series of natural and man-made disasters to afflict the U.S. territory in recent years. The island is also going through bankruptcy and its former governor resigned amid a political scandal and massive street protests last year.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared an emergency in Puerto Rico and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief with Puerto Rican officials.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency on the island to ensure hospitals had funding to meet needs.

More than 500 tremors occurred in the south of the island between Dec. 28 and Tuesday, including 32 greater than magnitude 4.

The 6.4 magnitude quake on Tuesday morning was the most powerful to hit Puerto Rico since 1918, when a 7.3 magnitude quake and tsunami killed 116 people, according to the Puerto Rican seismology institute, Red Sismica.

Puerto Rico is accustomed to hurricanes, but powerful quakes are rare.

(Reporting by Ricardo Ortiz, Luis Valentin Ortiz, Marco Bello, Daniel Trotta and Andrew Hay; Editing by Richard Chang, Robert Birsel)

Quake rattles Puerto Rico, damages homes on southern coast

(Reuters) – A 5.8-magnitude earthquake off the southern coast of Puerto Rico on Monday damaged homes and destroyed a rock formation on a beach that had been a tourist attraction, but there were no reports of injuries.

The quake was shallow at 3.7 miles (6 km) beneath the surface with an epicenter 8 miles (13 km) south-southeast of Indios, the U.S. Geological Survey said, enough to rattle the southwestern corner of the Caribbean island.

It was the largest in a series of quakes that have struck the area over the past two weeks.

Several homes were knocked off their pillars in the towns of Guanica and Guayanilla. Television images showed a number of elevated homes that crushed vehicles parked beneath the main floor.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said his office would be in contact with local and federal authorities to determine if government aid was needed for the U.S. territory.

Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez said she convened a meeting of her security team, which was assessing the damage.

Guayanilla also lost a tourist attraction called the Window of the Caribbean, a rock formation jutting into the sea that formerly featured a doughnut-like hole that provided a frame for the seascape behind it. With the quake, the top layer of rock and earth fell into the water.

The top of the frame had been subjected to partial collapse with the recent temblors and finally gave way with Monday’s quake, Telemundo Puerto Rico television reported.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Chris Reese)

Trump slams ‘corrupt’ Puerto Rico as Storm Dorian heads for island

Tropical Storm Dorian is shown in this photo taken by NASA's Aqua satellite MODIS instrument as it moved over the Leeward Islands, as it continues its track into the Eastern Caribbean Sea, August 27, 2019. NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS)/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Puerto Rico “one of the most corrupt places on earth” as the U.S. territory prepared for a hit by Tropical Storm Dorian, which brought back memories on the island of devastation from hurricanes two years ago.

Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from back-to-back hurricanes in 2017, which killed about 3,000 people just months after it filed for bankruptcy.

Dorian was bearing down on Puerto Rico from the southeast and was expected to become a hurricane soon as it barrels towards Florida, which it could hit as a major hurricane.

After approving an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico late on Tuesday, Trump took a swipe at the U.S. territory in a tweet on Wednesday morning.

“Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt. Congress approved Billions of Dollars last time, more than anyplace else has ever gotten, and it is sent to Crooked Pols. No good!” Trump wrote.

Trump has a history of disputes with Puerto Rico’s leaders. He was heavily criticized for a tepid response to the 2017 hurricanes that battered Puerto Rico.

This week, Democrats in the U.S. Congress also slammed him for shifting $271 million earmarked for disaster aid and cyber security to pay for detention facilities and courts for migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, on Tuesday described the shift as “stealing from appropriated funds.”

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Dorian was blowing maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) about 25 miles southeast of the island of St. Croix on Wednesday morning.

“Dorian is forecast to be near hurricane strength when it approaches the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico,” the NHC said.

Puerto Rican officials warned that the eastern part of the island should brace for particularly heavy rains.

“We are better prepared than when Hurricane Maria attacked our island,” Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez said on Tuesday.

Vazquez, who took office this month after political turmoil led to the resignation of her predecessor, said preparations for the storm were more than 90% complete.

Infrastructure ranging from electric power lines to telecommunications and banking networks were in better shape than they had been in 2017, she added.

BAD HISTORY

Two years ago, Puerto Rico was recovering from Hurricane Irma when Hurricane Maria struck in September 2017, destroying roads and bridges and leaving much of the Caribbean island without electricity for months.

The U.S. response to Maria became highly politicized as the Trump administration was criticized as being slow to recognize the extent of the devastation and in providing disaster relief to Puerto Rico, an island of more than 3 million people. Trump later disputed Puerto Rico’s official death toll of 3,000.

Hogan Gidley, a White House deputy press secretary, accused Puerto Rican authorities on Wednesday of misusing taxpayer funds in the 2017 hurricanes.

“The money we sent down there, we now know, several on the ground have been indicted for misusing that money, giving it to politicians as bonuses, watching that food rot in the ports, the water went bad,” he told reporters.

Puerto Rican public schools are closed on Wednesday and public workers have been instructed to stay home, Vazquez said.

Royal Caribbean’s cruise liner “Allure of the Sea” canceled a scheduled visit to the island on Thursday, and Carnival Cruise Line also adjusted its itineraries, the governor said.

The NHC’s latest forecasts predict that Dorian could reach Florida as a major hurricane early on Monday.

The Dominican Republic has also upped storm preparations. Juan Manuel Mendez, director of the emergency operations center, said authorities have identified 3,000 buildings that can be converted into shelters, with capacity for up to 800,000 people.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay; additional reporting by Ezequiel Abiu Lopez, Alex Dobuzinskis, Rebekah F Ward, Lisa Lambert and David Alexander; Writing by Julia Love; Editing by Alison Williams and Alistair Bell)

Puerto Rico’s new governor says she intends to remain in office

FILE PHOTO: Wanda Vazquez, former Secretary of Justice, is sworn in as Governor of Puerto Rico by Supreme Court Justice Maite Oronoz after Pedro Pierluisi's former oath was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, August 7, 2019. Also pictured are Vazquez's husband Jorge Diaz (back L) and their daughter, Beatriz Diaz. REUTERS/Gabriella N. Baez/File Photo

SAN JUAN (Reuters) – The revolving door at the governor’s office in Puerto Rico may finally stop with Wanda Vazquez, the newly sworn-in chief executive of the bankrupt U.S. territory, who said on Thursday she has no plans to resign.

In a series of interviews with local media, Puerto Rico’s former justice secretary denied reports that she had agreed to resign soon to allow Jenniffer Gonzalez, the Caribbean island’s nonvoting representative in the U.S. Congress, to take over.

“I have never had such an agreement. I don’t know what kind of agreements (New Progressive Party and legislative leaders) have reached,” Vazquez said on a morning radio show, emphasizing that she intends to remain in office for the remainder of former Governor Ricardo Rossello’s term, which ends on Jan. 1, 2021.

On Wednesday, Vazquez became Puerto Rico’s third governor in less than a week, after Rossello, who took office in 2017, stepped down on Friday, and his hand-picked successor, Pedro Pierluisi, was removed by the island’s supreme court.

The nine-member court on Wednesday unanimously ruled that Pierluisi’s assumption of the office was unconstitutional because the Puerto Rico Senate had not confirmed his July 31 appointment by Rossello as secretary of state, the post that is next in line for governor under the territory’s constitution.

The high court’s ruling followed weeks of political turmoil, with Rossello on July 24 announcing his intention to resign after of days of protests.

The demonstrations, which drew around a third of the island’s 3.2 million people, were sparked by the revelation of offensive chat messages between Rossello and his closest allies, and federal corruption charges brought against two former members of his administration.

The chat message scandal led to the July 13 resignation of Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin, whom Rossello eventually replaced with Pierluisi.

Vazquez last week initially voiced reluctance to take over the island’s top government post after being targeted by protesters for alleged corruption and being too close to Rossello.

On Thursday, Vazquez said she did not see herself as a politician, emphasizing she would not run for governor in the 2020 election.

The political upheaval comes at a critical time in Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, as it seeks billions of dollars in federal funding for healthcare and recovery efforts from devastating 2017 hurricanes.

As governor, Vazquez must deal with Puerto Rico’s federally created fiscal oversight board, which filed the government’s bankruptcy in 2017 in U.S. District Court to restructure about $120 billion of debt and pension obligations.

“The board is there and we must seek consensus,” Vazquez said in an interview, adding that the majority of Puerto Ricans oppose the board.

(Reporting By Luis Valentin Ortiz in San Juan; Additional reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty and Matthew Lewis)

Puerto Rico’s new governor is challenged in court: newspaper

FILE PHOTO: Pedro Pierluisi holds a news conference after swearing in as Governor of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico August 2, 2019. REUTERS/Gabriella N. Baez/File Photo

(Reuters) – The legitimacy of Puerto Rico’s newly-installed governor has been challenged in court, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, adding further drama to who will lead the U.S. territory after weeks of protests.

Pedro Pierluisi, the handpicked successor to disgraced former governor Ricardo Rossello, was sworn in on Friday.

Pierluisi, 60, said his term might be short as the island’s Senate still had to ratify his position.

That vote was expected to happen on Wednesday.

But late on Sunday, Puerto Rico Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz sued Pierluisi in a San Juan court, claiming he usurped the office by ignoring a constitutional requirement for the Senate to vote to confirm him, the Journal reported.

Pierluisi, a lawyer who formerly advised the despised, federally-created board supervising Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy, was sworn in even though his appointment had not yet gone before the Senate for a vote.

The lawsuit asks the court to strip him of the title and stop him performing any acts as governor, the Journal reported.

Reuters could not confirm the lawsuit, nor reach Pierluisi or Schatz for comment early on Monday.

At his first news conference as governor last week, Pierluisi acknowledged that Puerto Rico’s Senate was still to meet to vote on whether to confirm his position.

Schatz has previously said that installing Pierluisi before the vote was “unethical and illegal.”

But Pierluisi had countered: “The Senate will have its say and by the end of Wednesday we’ll know whether I am ratified.”.

If he is not ratified then the second in line, the secretary of justice of Puerto Rico, will take over the governorship, he said.

Rossello, a 40-year-old, first-term governor, had tapped Pierluisi as secretary of state, a position putting him first in line as successor.

The island’s leading newspaper El Nuevo Dia subsequently reported that Schatz had rescheduled the session to vote on the appointment for Monday.

Pierluisi’s statement capped a week of political chaos in Puerto Rico after Rossello said he would resign over offensive chat messages that drew around a third of the island’s 3.2 million people to the streets in protest.

The chats between Rossello and top aides took aim at female politicians and gay celebrities like Ricky Martin, and poked fun at ordinary Puerto Ricans.

The publication of the messages unleashed anger building for years in Puerto Rico over the island’s painful bankruptcy process, ineffective hurricane recovery efforts and corruption scandals linked to a string of past governors, including Rossello’s father.

Until an appointment was confirmed by both chambers, Schatz and other senators said the next in line for governor, under law, was Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Judge rejects bid to block end of aid to Hurricane Maria evacuees

FILE PHOTO: Ysamar Figueroa carrying her son Saniel, looks at the damage in the neighbourhood after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria, in Canovanas, Puerto Rico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo

BOSTON (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday rejected a request to block the U.S. government from cutting off aid to hundreds of Puerto Rican families who fled the hurricane-ravaged island in 2017 and are living in hotels and motels across the United States.

But U.S. District Judge Timothy Hillman in Worcester, Massachusetts, ordered the government to continue providing assistance to people who were forced to leave their homes because of Hurricane Maria until Sept. 13 so they could prepare.

Lawyers for a group of Puerto Ricans pursuing the lawsuit had argued that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) decision to terminate aid violated their due process rights and contended that they being discriminated against.

But Hillman said they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims and rejected their request for an injunction that would require FEMA to continue providing aid to evacuees until they obtained temporary or permanent housing.

FILE PHOTO: A broken traffic light, a street sign and branches lie on the street 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

FILE PHOTO: A broken traffic light, a street sign and branches lie on the street 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

“While this is the result that I am compelled to find, it is not necessarily the right result,” Hillman wrote.

He said he could not required FEMA “to do that which in a humanitarian and caring world should be done,” but could only order it to do what the law requires.

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico with winds close to 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour) on Sept. 20, causing an estimated $90 billion in damage to the already economically struggling U.S. territory.

On Tuesday, the official death toll from Maria, the most powerful storm to hit the Caribbean island in almost a century, was raised to nearly 3,000.

According to FEMA, 1,044 families displaced by Maria as of Wednesday were receiving aid under a program that pays for hotel lodging. Since its launch the program in total has helped 7,032 families displaced by Maria, FEMA said.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Minutes from missiles, Guam islanders get to grips with uncertain fate

By Martin Petty

GUAM (Reuters) – Fourteen minutes is not long to prepare for a potential catastrophe. That’s the estimated time taken from a launch of a mid-range ballistic missile in North Korea until impact on Guam, where residents seem resigned to the belief that their fate is out of their control.

The local government of this tiny U.S. Pacific island issued preparation guidance to its 163,000 people on Friday on how best to hide and deal with radiation after threats by Pyongyang to strike Guam, or test its missiles in its surrounding waters.

But islanders don’t seem in a hurry to get ready.

Mike Benavente, 37, who maintains air conditioners, said he saw the advisory on Facebook, but preferred family time at a beach barbecue to stocking up on supplies and thinking about suitable shelter options.

“Preparation for attack? I’m doing it!” he said, pointing to a grill he was readying for burgers and hot dogs. “If we have a big missile coming here, everyone’s gonna die. How can I prepare for a missile?”

In a guidance note titled “Preparing for an Imminent Missile Threat”, Guam Homeland Security advised seeking out in advance windowless shelters in homes, schools and offices, with concrete “dense enough to absorb radiation”.

It said if an attack warning came, residents should seek shelter and stay there for at least 24 hours. Those caught outside should lay down, cover their heads and “not look at the flash or fireball” to avoid going blind.

Plush hotels along Guam’s Tumon beach didn’t seem in a rush to prepare either. Staff at several hotels and resorts said they knew guidelines had been issued but already had procedures in place for emergencies.

“We have an evacuation plan for typhoon, tsunami, terrorism, but we don’t have anything for a North Korean missile attack,” said a supervisor at one resort, who asked that neither he nor his hotel be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

A manager at a hotel nearby had a printed copy of the guidelines, but said there was no instruction yet to distribute it to guests.

 

TIME LIMITED

North Korea on Thursday said plans would be completed by mid-August to fire four intermediate-range missiles to land near Guam, some 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) away, after U.S. President Donald Trump said any threat would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Guam, an island half the size of Hong Kong and some 7,000 km from the U.S. mainland, is a target because of its naval base and air force base, from which two B-1B supersonic bombers were deployed close to the Korean peninsula on Tuesday.

It is also a permanent home to a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor.

Local authorities have been reassuring residents and tourists that a “strategic defense umbrella” across the Western Pacific can counter any missile attacks, and the chance of a successful North Korean strike on Guam was minimal.

“Our confidence is it’s point zero zero, zero zero, zero – that’s five zeros – and a one,” the governor’s homeland security advisor, George Charfauros, said on Friday.

“The threat level has not changed. It’s business as usual.”

That was the case on Saturday in Guam’s malls and along its pristine beaches, where children played in the turquoise sea as parents drank beer and prepared picnics.

“I haven’t really thought about preparation. We really don’t know what to do if there’s a missile attack,” said Marlene, 37, an accountant.

“We get just 14 minutes. The military says they’ll be ready, so we’re banking on them.”

Auto parts seller Mitch Aguon, 51, spent his day off fishing and said preparation was pointless.

“By the time we hear about it, it’ll be too late and there’s no room for us ordinary Joes in the bomb shelters. We’re dead meat,” he said.

 

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)