I. What Trump Actually Said
If you've been depending on the major news media to keep up with the response to the disaster in Puerto Rico you might think that President Trump has been ignoring the plight of the people there both now and going forward. NBC posted a story, yesterday, headlined: "Trump Administration Won’t Promise To Fix Puerto Rico’s Infrastructure," following a tweet he issued that morning. But here's what he said on both the current and long term efforts required for Puerto Rico's recovery, in an address to the National Association of Manufacturers, later in the day, as reported by military.com:
"We're closely coordinated with the territorial and local governments, which are totally and, unfortunately, unable to handle this catastrophic crisis on their own — just totally unable to."
"The police and truck drivers are very substantially gone. They're taking care of their families and largely unable to get involved, largely unable to help. Therefore, we're forced to bring in truck drivers, security, and many, many other personnel, by the thousands. We've never seen a situation like this," he said. "Ultimately, the government of Puerto Rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort — it 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.
Does that sound like a refusal to promise to help rebuild the island? Trump's statement, here, actually begs the question of national economy, particularly on bringing back the Glass-Steagall separation of commercial banking from speculative investment banking, and a credit system to finance the rebuilding effort. Trump expressed support for the return of Glass Steagall, at least once late during the 2016 presidential campaign, and one or two times since taking office. There is legislation in both the House and the Senate to do just that, but so far, Wall Street lobbying has kept it from moving.
II. What the Military is Actually Doing
Military officials involved in the recovery have been candid in reporting that what's been done, so far, hasn't been enough. "Our capability is building every single day, and we will keep building until we have fully met the needs of the people of Puerto Rico." Lt. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, the man in charge of the overall military effort told CNN, yesterday, that the DoD has not yet sent enough troops and vehicles to the island, though more are on the way. "We're certainly bringing in more [troops]," he said. "For example, on the military side, we're bringing in both Air Force, Navy, and Army medical capabilities in addition to aircraft, more helicopters. … [But] it's not enough, and we're bringing more in."
Much is being made of the pileup of shipping containers at the port in San Juan. White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert said in Thursday that the problem is the lack of trucks and truck drivers. He said that "the challenge becomes land-based distribution." It was especially difficult in the island's interior, Bossert said. "I understand the coverage in some cases is giving the appearance we are not moving fast enough," Bossert said of the growing criticism of the U.S. response.
"What I will tell you is we are mobilizing and marshaling the resources of the United States of America in a way that is absolutely professional and fast and adequate to meet the needs," Bossert said.
Bossert said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now had full responsibility for restoring power and the grid in Puerto Rico. "They've been given the mission" by federal authority to bring back power, transmission and distribution, Bossert said of USACE. USACE was also supplying 900 "super sandbags" to shore up the Guajataca Dam in the northeastern part of the island that has been in danger of failing. Each "super sandbag" weighs about 5,000 pounds, according to USACE. Two CH-47 helicopters from the Pennsylvania National Guard are on their way to deliver the sand bags to the dam.
At the Pentagon, on Thursday, Brig. Gen. Keith Wark, director of operations for the National Guard Bureau, said that Guard and Reserve airlift into Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands was averaging about 50 missions daily. "I'm expecting to maintain this level of effort for at least the next two weeks," Wark said. "We're looking at some pretty big muscle movements across DoD if we have to go in and provide the level of troop efforts that we think we are," Wark said.
In addition, "there's planning factors for up to 10,000 additional Guardsmen. If we have to do that — that's a big if — that's going to be a significant amount of capability," Wark said. What the Air Force is doing now "is making sure we're sequenced across FEMA, the active force, the Guard response, and make sure that's all synchronized to get things to the various airfields" for relief in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, he said. Initially, the main problem was clearing roads around the airfields to allow relief distribution, Wark said. As a result, massive supply distribution has been a challenge, especially in Puerto Rico, he said.
Some news reports might give you the impression that nobody is getting help in Puerto Rico. Clearly not enough are, but this report from CBS does give a glimpse into what's actually being done by the military, in this case, Marines from the Kearsarge.
It seems to me that there are many questions that could be asked about the response that the critics aren't taking up. I can think of a few–others can probably come up with more:
* There were two category four storms that hit Texas and Florida in the two weeks before Maria hit Puerto Rico that both required a massive, still ongoing response. How did those effect the response to Puerto Rico?
* Is the imperial overstretch of the US military making it more difficult to allocate forces for the hurricane response? The Wasp, I know, originally departed Norfolk for an overseas deployment before it was diverted to hurricane response.
* When military forces are deployed in any type of operation, they also require support, including food, shelter, fuel and other logistics. How does that factor into deployment calculations?
Very informative, thanks Willy! I have been taking a break from reading the news as much as possible the last few months. Got tired of having to continually research everything. It takes work to figure out reality versus propaganda/political hysteria. On top of that is the necessity to work to consciously and actively tune out the inchoate collective anger-mongering that seems to have become omnipresent (shields up!).
So I especially appreciate this concise overview of the Puerto Rico situation.
Thanks Willy.
We are now on day 10 after the original incident. I believe the questions have to start earlier.
1. The U.S. has a professional civil defense organization called FEMA that is supposed to prepare for disasters and to respond when one happened. The Hurricane was predicted, with high probability, to hit Puerto Rico directly four days before the impact.
How come that the preparations failed. No storm protected local diesel & food depot in every township? No equipment ready to clean up and distribute? No crews organized?
How come there was no staging of the necessary stuff on the continental U.S.? No pre-alarm for military assets? Where was/is the Fema management in this?
2. The introduction of military transport assets took much too long. The storm hit 10 days ago. When was the first military helo flying over Puerto Rico? Five days later? Six?
3. Why does the president have to get involved in this? The press likes to beat up Trump, but this is, for the size of the U.S., a minor, localized incident. Why can’t local or regional resources or this or that federal department handle it alone? That is a point where the media should do some real digging.
Now some will say “this can’t be done any better”. But it can.
On September 8/9 Cuba was hit by a Cat 5 storm. It was the biggest and hardest impact since 1932. A lot of houses and other stuff was destroyed. 1.7 million people had to be evacuated.
A week later Medicc reported:
http://medicc.org/ns/irmarecoveryupdates/
/quote/
87% of the population affected now has both electricity and water. No outbreaks of infectious diseases are reported, and cleanup is prioritized in both the capital and hardest-hit central provinces. Food processing centers are operating in all these provinces, and cooked food is being distributed in shelters (where 26,000 remain of the 1.7 evacuees) and in areas without electricity.
Teaching activities have resumed throughout the country as of September 18 …
/endquote/
So – the f***ing socialists can do it but the mighty U.S. fails?
I need to say up front that I am not pro-Trump but in the case of Puerto Rico he is doing a good job. There has been a great lack of preplanning on the part of the local authorities for a natural disaster. I live in Houston and the city and county authorities were well prepared to handle our disaster. Emergency services were evacuating people during the storm and depositing them in local shelters where they were me with food, water and dry clothing before they were even registered. Most of this was local with little input from FEMA except for money. Government people and volunteers knew what to do and how to do it, they rehearsed it a number of times over the last few years after the disasters of previous years with Rita and Ike.
Chances are that the same situation existed in Florida. As far as I know , Puerto Rico did none of this preplanning and rehearsing on a local level, or if they did it was done poorly.
Got tired of having to continually research everything.
No kidding. It’s exhausting. A second job without income.
WB Thanks
It is astonishing how Florida and Houston disappeared from the news replaced by Caribbean hysteria to spike the ratings and the ongoing White House coup. Preparation, rescue and reconstruction takes money; Puerto Rico doesn’t have any. The velocity of the flow of money through the economy is declining. God forbid that any of the money hoarded by the wealthy is used to save American lives.
b,
They haven’t been able to use the PR airport until recently. The Virgin Islands got theirs fixed up earlier.
Cuba has had well-rehearsed and carefully planned national reactions to hurricanes and other natural disasters in place for decades. Extraordinarily well-planned.
B,
BTW, it’s the military in control of this operation, not FEMA.
b,
Puerto Rico is the equivalent of a state. They have the primary responsibility for making sure preparations are adequate not the federal government.
The problem in Puerto Rico is “socialism”. The government and public agencies borrowed and spent and delivered nothing for their citizens including good infrastructure. Their electrical grid is no better than a third world country. They’re financially bankrupt! No chance of ever repaying their municipal debt.
US taxpayers will be footing the bill for their recovery How much of those recovery funds will be siphoned off by their politically well connected elites??
MRW
It was only after demonstration of the fact that FEMA and the Commonwealth government are incapable of managing something this size was the military tasked to run the disaster recovery. pl
b
The time for maintaining overseas colonial possessions ended long ago. We need to re-think the association of the island with the US once we get through shelling out 50 billion dollars or whatever it will be. We have to remember that the island government is essentially bankrupt through their own actions and graft. The US no longer has significant military or naval bases on the island. I have been there a number of times and in spite of their possession of full US citizenship the place is not much like the US. The UN makes noises about US colonialism in PR. Fine, let there be another referendum once things settle down. At present the commonwealth calls itself the “Estado Libre Associado de Puerto Rico.” They have their own Olympic team and mayor Cruz’s party wants an independent foreign policy and freedom from subordination to the US federal courts. Fine! Viva Puerto Rico Libre! BTW, unless things have changed, persons resident on the island and deriving their income from the island pay no US personal income tax. pl
The severity of the storm and its effects were underestimated. There was inadequate preparation by both Puerto Rico and FEMA. Once we figured out how bad this was, the response has been pretty strong, but it will take a while to catch up.
Long term, I don’t really see an advantage in having Puerto Rico as part of the US. If they have another referendum and vote to become a state can we say no?
Steve
I think that the United States is not prepared for large scale natural disasters, just look at Katrina. As the Earth warms, the incidents of such disasters will increase as well.
Its easier to respond quickly to a crisis in a one party dictatorship where people can be ordered about more easily.
Jack,
“The government and public agencies borrowed and spent and delivered nothing for their citizens including good infrastructure” is not the definition of socialism.
@VietnamVet
1) there is a huge difference between a disaster effecting states on the mainland and the same one effecting a tiny island.
2)puerto ricans are americans
Of course. How could it be otherwise, Colonel. FEMA has had years, if not decades, to learn military logistics, the best our country has to offer. What’s it been doing during that time? Fuck if I know.
Willy B,
Having not spent much time on following the issue except snippets, I graded Trump an F. So I started writing a response, asking the question: What does this say about US preparedness for say a container nuke in Port of Los Angeles? And I realized that it would not be the same because aid could and would drive in from all the neighboring states.
But aid can’t drive to Puerto Rico. Which Trump tweeted, but it sounded rather idiotic in 140 characters. But he was right. Its just that in 140 characters you can’t actually communicate.
I think Trump is shooting himself in the foot with his tweeting rather than having a decent length speech followed by some press Q&A.
I turned off on him when he said he was worried about shippers, and that aid couldn’t be considered before Puerto Rico paid back wall street (i.e., his cabinet). However, that is not the immediate disaster response.
Thanks for your summary!
Amateur radio operators stepped in to help. A group of 50 volunteers teamed up with the Red Cross to provide emergency HF commo for rescue and relief workers. A second group will soon establish “health and welfare” networks back to CONUS. My older son would have volunteered for this if he didn’t just start a new job.
Babak, how can natural disasters increase if the earth warms? C’mon, think about it. If the temperature were the same throughout the planet, there wouldn’t be storms. Period. (Of course not something that political activist self-proclaimed ‘climate scientists’ have bothered to study.) Storms are caused by differences in the temperature gradient, NOT by temperatures that are even and consistent. Pick up any university meteorology textbook for a definition of what causes storms, cyclones, and hurricanes. I’m not making this shit up.
Katrina could have been avoided had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineering done its job fixing the levees, which New Orleans pooh-poohed worrying about for 10 years before Katrina struck when they were warned. Repeatedly. Check the records. I did..
It’s like Mayor Bloomberg. He was WARNED by whatever emergency group he had reporting to the City in 2010 to take measures to fix “The Bight.” Yes, that’s bight, not blight. (Look up on Google. It’s a natural shoreline configuration that can cause massive tidal surges.) I have the safety report somewhere on this computer. Bloomberg completely ignored it. Probably had to go out for lunch uptown.
So when Sandy hit, Bloomberg, the mayor scumbag that he was, pulled at his pearls and made some mewling comment about “Global Warming” causing all this—not him—and President Sparky and his media minions bought Bloomberg’s coverup of neglect, and millions to this day believe that lying fucker.
Nobody does their goddam homework.
I’d rather have a bunch of high school grunts trained in logistics at Camp LeJeune any day of the week than the lazy-ass thinkers who pound out their substandard pieces for the NY Times, Washington Post, and HuffPo who think they’re impressing me with their incredible stupidity.
Don’t fall for this shit, Babak.
Babak, how can natural disasters increase if the earth warms? C’mon, think about it. If the temperature were the same throughout the planet, there wouldn’t be storms. Period. (Of course not something that political activist self-proclaimed ‘climate scientists’ have bothered to study.) Storms are caused by differences in the temperature gradient, NOT by temperatures that are even and consistent. Pick up any university meteorology textbook for a definition of what causes storms, cyclones, and hurricanes. I’m not making this shit up.
Katrina could have been avoided had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineering done its job fixing the levees, which New Orleans pooh-poohed worrying about for 10 years before Katrina struck when they were warned. Repeatedly. Check the records. I did..
It’s like Mayor Bloomberg. He was WARNED by whatever emergency group he had reporting to the City in 2010 to take measures to fix “The Bight.” Yes, that’s bight, not blight. (Look up on Google. It’s a natural shoreline configuration that can cause massive tidal surges.) I have the safety report somewhere on this computer. Bloomberg completely ignored it. Probably had to go out for lunch uptown.
So when Sandy hit, Bloomberg, the mayor scumbag that he was, pulled at his pearls and made some mewling comment about “Global Warming” causing all this—not him—and President Sparky and his media minions bought Bloomberg’s coverup of neglect, and millions to this day believe that lying fucker.
Nobody does their goddam homework.
I’d rather have a bunch of high school grunts trained in logistics at Camp LeJeune any day of the week than the lazy-ass thinkers who pound out their substandard pieces for the NY Times, Washington Post, and HuffPo who think they’re impressing me with their incredible stupidity.
Don’t fall for this shit, Babak.
Your final point makes the case exactly, Colonel.
Too much scope for shucking off the blame for bad behaviour onto others. The few PR contacts I have are unhappy with the local government.
In the meantime, let’s deal with reality. They’re Americans.
I think that the US Armed Forces are the only entity that can deal with a situation like this and they were not mobilized when they should have been. Regarding Donal Trump, he did not engage a whole lot until the criticism arrived. He is after all the head of the federal government, and as GWB found out, this is a test of leadership. What I have seen so far, that is inadequate.
The recovery in Puerto Rico will take a long time, will require a lot of resources and solid planning. I recently made it through Hurricane Irma and in 2004, I was involved in repairing damage from 3 hurricanes. What I see in PR does not even come close to that.
I am sure federal assets are catching up, but they are still way behind the curve and that is due to failed leadership at the top of the federal government. In 2004, I spent 3 years repairing storm damage and as I said, it was not nearly as extensive as the situation in Puerto Rico.
I expect another million people from there to come here to Florida, where many have relatives. The GOP is not going to like that, because they know who failed them when it mattered and when they arrive here, they can vote.
This situation reminds me of a lecture by Dr. Barry Ryan on the Vietnam War….after carefully reviewing all of the fear of Communism of the time right after WWII, the development by the USSR of the hydrogen bomb, the fact that China had indeed “gone Red” and had indeed joined the Korean War on North Korea’s side….he projected 2 maps: one of the area around Korea and one of the area around Vietnam.
Then he asked: see the difference? (The Korean PENNINSULA could actually be cut into a North and South. A DMZ was a possible construct. Vietnam? No way and, according to his analysis, therein was the
problem for the US…and it was insolvable because there was no way to actually keep the North out of the South on the ground.)
Okay…that brings me to Puerto Rico which is an ISLAND. OF COURSE, the PR truckers, etc. are unavailable as they are with their families or looking for their families. BIG DIFFERENCE between Houston and Florida —– TRUCKERS/WORKERS/ASSISTANCE CAN DRIVE IN!!!
This part of the problem really could have been foreseen — not such a mystery and comparing the two situations really clarifies the difficulties on a whole host of levels….which SHOULD HAVE BEEN FORSEEN.
Not necessarily by Trump…but someone should have said “Hey guys” we need a different logistical response…soon. No system is perfect…and now this can be baked into future responses for islands.
Maria went into the SE coast at a Cat 4 and came out on the NW coast as a Cat 2 and dumped +20″ of rain on an island that had not seen anything close to that severity since Hurricane Hugo 20+ years ago. So most new roofs suffered due poor construction and building codes. A good number on roads and culverts had severe damage. Every Puerto Rican has their own individual horror story of this storm but the real horror is their government response.
FEMA had pre-positioned supplies and the first five vessels that discharged containers in the port had a number of FEMA containers onboard. FEMA had pre-arranged response plans which have been put into effect and working properly. The USCG had helicopters up right after the storm supplemented by US Navy and British Navy. A lot has been going on that is organized and normal after an event such as this but what is not normal is the local government response which is why the military has/will take over the recovery.
It took four months for electricity to get back to normal after Hugo and will take a lot longer for it to get back this time as a complete new transmission line network needs to be implemented. Due lack of electricity only 50% of gas stations could open, banks, grocery stores, pharmacies and other merchants also were quite limited. Those that did open had the foresight to have generators on hand to operate. Today Walmart and other large chains are opening up stores and taking credit/debit cards so life is getting back to some stability but had a ways to go. The island is a cash only society till all gets back to normal and if you have to make payroll you better fly the cash in.
Now in San Juan land lines, cell lines, water distribution all functioned prior, during and after the storm and overall the city fared pretty well as its the interior of the island where the serious problems are but people have been successful driving from Ponce and Mayaquez to San Juan with an extra hour or two for detours. Trash and refuse need to be picked up and I guess the Army will arrange that as the local politicians are doing nothing but crying to Crybaby News Network.
The real hindrance is lack of electricity which is due to the Thieves who have been in political office for that past twenty years on the island.
This FEMA is pretty much Obama’s. Trump is barely in office to have had any impact on that organization.
In any case no president is a field manager of the myriads of departments and agencies in the federal government. What president’s are responsible for are policy changes that they push through Congress and administrative rule changes that their political appointees issue from their perches in various agencies.
Your distaste for Trump well before his election is well known to everyone at SST. It clouds your judgment.
That should be “after” 2004, I spent 3 years repairing storm damage.
The various temp charts I have seen show a greater variation of tempretures across the globe. Although on average the global tempreture has risen, some areas have large increases while other areas are colder. Recipe for more violent storms.
MRW
Did I suggest otherwise? pl
outthere
That’s fine with me. I don’t think they should be a state. pl
james
you remind me of all the old Warsaw Pact communists who assured me after the end of communism that Marxism-Leninism had never been applied properly and that they had always been at heart the altar boys that their mothers had loved. My job was to make their formerly tyrannical services into allies and so we just had another drink. pl
A great opportunity to re-create PR – maybe as a global resort destination… A bit of Las Vegas, Hawaii, Disneyland (ok, Six Flags), even more golf courses! make the Wall St debt-holders get their $ back only through gov-backed bonds stipulating investment in PR. how ’bout an expanded immigration quota for, say, wealthy Russians & Chinese? make PR a center for research, design & construction of storm-proof homes & infrastructure (FL & TX can’t seem to figure it out). I can think of a buncha things that might be an improvement over a tweet-war with some obscure mayor, and I’m just having a coupla beers watching SEC football. Has ideology & permanent war killed our creativity & drive?
It’s very telling that when Wall Street lends billions of dollars to those who will never be able to pay them back, it’s always the borrower’s fault. And when the inevitable happens, and the borrowers are unable to pay, the US government does everything in its power to ensure that the Wall Street banks never lose a cent. Doesn’t matter if the Democrats or the Republicans are in power either. Wall Street always wins.
MRW- Sorry, but Babak’s on the money. Your first paragraph seems to confuse several issues.
The temperature is not the same throughout the planet, and never has been, ie the Earth has temperature gradients, regardless of climate change or not. It’s hot at the equator, where the Sun’s radiation arrives most directly, and cold at the poles, remember?
This temperature gradient is sufficient to drive natural disasters, without any help from climate change, so if additional energy raises the temperature of some parts of the system, then we might expect higher gradients and more severe weather events.
Increased temperatures arising from global warming won’t change this; the earth’s temperatures will go up and down as they do today, but about a higher long-term average.
There are two other climate change-related factors that will enhance natural disasters. Sea level rise is quietly proceeding at an average 3mm/year; more in some places, less in others depending on local/regional conditions. Florida already knows about this. The other factor is increased humidity. Warmer air will carry more water vapor, and thus more latent energy that will manifest itself as more intense storms etc.
Actually, there is zero conflict between what the media is reporting and Trump’s actual response to the hurricane. After nine days of suffering, the federal government is now doing something. Everyone agrees that the federal response has been lacking to date, including Willy.
Concerning the headline that “Trump Administration Won’t Promise to Fix Puerto Rico’s Infrastructure” that headline in 100% true. Nowhere has Trump promised to fix that infrastructure. In fact, the Trump quotes above, where he says that the bankrupt island’s leaders will need to discuss funding, which Puerto Roco doesn’t have, indicates Trump is not going to rebuild that infrastructure.
Ok, … let’s kill the boldness …
PeterAU,
The various temp charts I have seen show a greater variation of tempretures [sic] across the globe.
Firstly, the “record” is only since 1979. That is the beginning of the satellite era and accurate measurements capable of recording “global” temps. THERE WERE NO SUCH “GLOBAL” RECORDS KEPT BEFORE THAT TIME. None. They were all regional, England’s CET records from the 1600s being the oldest. When you hear the phrase “in recorded history,” that recorded history is 35 years old.
Secondly, 75% of all Global Warming occurs during the Arctic and Antarctic winters. If you want to see the charts recorded daily (for the Arctic) by the Danish Meteorological Institute Ocean and Ice Services since 1958, go here. Bookmark and check it daily. I do.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Thirdly, and most importantly, storms are caused by the action of atmospheric processes, and the temperature gradient, the temperature difference, within them. Regional temperatures, per se, do not cause storms, whether high or low. The Sahara is a heat tinderbox. It does not have “violent storms.” Neither does Iraq. Except for what the wind does to the sand. The Arctic and Antarctica are iceboxes. They don’t have “violent storms.” Except for what the wind does to the snow, and the Arctic ice floes because the Arctic ice cap actually floats. Antarctica is a continent like the US, but 1/3 larger. The only part of it that can break off is on the western ice shelf which juts out into the ocean like a hanger-on. The South pole, located roughly in the middle of Antarctica, is two miles above sea level and continental bedrock and growing higher daily (a major problem for scientists working on the Antarctic continent, who must build their research huts on stilts to forestall this activity).
It doesn’t matter what the so-called ‘global temperature’ is. It’s the troughs and ridges in the atmospheric processes, the blocking highs and lows, as the necessary and transport of heat from the tropics to the polar latitudes occurs daily. The last decade for horrific “violent storms” along the US eastern seaboard was the 50s, when the earth was experiencing “Global Cooling.” (For example, because of the activity in the Atlantic, cyclonic activity around Asia is in a lull.)
You don’t need to look at temperature charts. You need to learn what the Global Circulation Patterns mean, and what they do. Take a look.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/how-weather-works/global-circulation-patterns
Here’s an even better pic, provided by NASA and NOAA’s joint Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite — R Series
http://www.goes-r.gov/users/comet/tropical/textbook_2nd_edition/navmenu.php_tab_4.htm
Here is GOES-R homepage, another site to bookmark instead of believing what the bullshit know-nothings print carrying on about CO2 and global warming as if they understood what they were talking about.
http://www.goes-r.gov
hey james, how’s your socialist paradise of Venezuela doing these days? Still sporting that Che hat?
Lol!!
Stop using Html tags if you don’t know how to use them.
No, of course not. It was my sitting-at-the-bar-confirming-your-comment response. 😉
It’s certainly killed our sense of humor (and proportion).
Like your government-backed bonds idea.
“Storms are caused by temperature gradients” is a bit of a reduction. It is an amusing reduction, but, really…
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/thunderstorms/
Real world causality often reflects complex systemic matters.
“self-proclaimed ‘climate scientists” refers to what people, making what claims? Do you think it is not possible to link up your anemic “gradient” reduction to systemic changes in, for example, mean atmospheric and oceanic temperatures?
Is someone able to kill the “bold” option ?
All
I think that i have turned off the italics and bolding. pl
The salient difference has to be that the military has the budget to have equipment ready all the time, and to have the people trained and on-call to use it. If FEMA is sane, then coordination with the military has got to be at the center of their plan for the first days of a disaster like this one.
My distaste for Trump is well founded and he keeps it that way. In 1948, an American president quickly organized an airborne relief action to keep West Berlin viable and it succeeded. If Trump had picked up a phone instead of a golf club, he could have mobilized all kinds of military assets even before the storm hit. He has not even asked Congress for funds to pay for the effort. In TX and FL that was done rapidly.
“Storms are caused by differences in the temperature gradient,”
That is half of the story. When the average temperature rises, as it does, water evaporation, for example, will happen faster and at a larger scale.
The same difference in temperature gradient has significant larger consequences if it happens at 0 degree average temperature than at 100 degree average temperature.
Now go back and read that university meteorology textbook. Its all in there. No need to make it up.
Bobo,
“The real hindrance …. is due to the Thieves who have been in political office for that past twenty years on the island.”
I hope there is some law that can be found to will allow us to jail most of them.
He heard you, MRW, but let’s stop italics here. Besides wasn’t he on your side anyway?
Speaking of Turkey…..it appears that the deal between [Former NATO] Turkey and Russia for the Russian S400 systems has been finalized and will become a thorn in NATO’s bully side. On September 12th, Erdogan said the paperwork had been signed and advance payments made. Delivery will begin within 2 years.
http://tass.com/defense/968104
Yes on Florida. We got pounded pretty hard and the Keys were seriously creamed but the Guard was pre positioned and we had utility trucks and such in large parking spaces, statewide. It was an enormous storm but the total response package was solid, if not perfect.
As the oceans warm, they pump more energy into winds. The gradient incrases since the heat capacity of air is much smaller than waters.
There is also the cyclical hurricane intensity, the low cycle was over by early 2000s and will not come back until after 2030.
For 40 years, US electorate has marched to the drum beat of such fantasies as low taxes and small government. 330 million people cannot afford small government in a harsh continent such as this. The same electorate consistently has supported a militaristic foreign policy. What gives?
Lars,
So will that 1,000,000 plan on working ? It will go a long way to proving we don’t need 11,000,000 illegals. How about the responsibilities they have back in Puerto Rico? Will they be abandoning those or just looking for politicians who’ll promise some other taxpayers will pick up the bill?
Lars,
Remind me again who was the leader of the “resistance” who opposed the inauguariton of that constitutionally elected president back in 1948? How many members of congress opposed the vote in the electoral college in ’48? How many members of the press demanded a recount due to foreign interference in the “what happened” election of ’48?
Babak,
As you say the problem is water.
If I may, a shameless plug for an acquaintance:
I met a very interesting character several years ago, Dennis W. Newton: Engineer, meteorologist, test pilot, fisherman, and writer..and I do not use that last term lightly. His book “Severe Weather Flying” is a subcult-classic for aspiring pilots. Small, a bit of a pot, balding. Look at him, shake his hand, think “bank accountant”…and you have been fooled. Quiet, teeters on the brink of shy, but watch out..he will deadpan a hilarious comment on a conversation that will have the entire room pissing themselves at any moment. Inside that nerdy demeanor beats the heart of a lion. Flew for the Penn State research program…flying King Airs around the country looking for the worst icing conditions and deliberately flying into them?? Angels do not treat there and Dennis is no fool.
His book is a rare entertaining read in this highly technical area and the first chapter is the clearest, concisest explanation of weather I’ve ever encountered. A good guy.
https://www.amazon.com/Severe-Weather-General-Aviation-Reading/dp/1560274271
Babak Makkinejad,
The question for our time, and for us in our time, is this: is this current round of ocean heat-buildup purely the expression of a natural cycle which we can only ride out? Or is it due to man-driven buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmoshphere . . . CO2, various Nitrogen Oxides, Ozone (down here near the ground rather than up in the layer where we would like it to be), various simple volatile halogenated hydrocarbon solvents used to clean off newly-minted computer chips, etc?
If it is man-made, it can be man-unmade. If it is man-added-to, it can be man-subtracted-from.
So the answer is very important. Can we be actively interventionist into the process, or can we only be passively reactive and adaptive?
Babak Makkinejad,
Insufficent corpus-callosum connectivity between the two hemispheres of too many brains. That’s what gives.
The point I was trying to make is that the government has a lot of resources, if they are deployed. In this case, they were very slow in ramping up. Other than that, it does not matter what happened in the election of 1948, other than we got a president who knew how to be president. Now we have one who seems to have trouble figuring it out and may never do. It takes more than 140 characters at a time.
It seems DJT did not know Puerto Rico is part of the US.
TonyL
IMO he has not been capable of distinguishing such niceties as the status of a territory of the US. pl
Lars,
I know you hate the sob but my point is that the politicians in the Establishment have hindered him at every turn. On the ground in PR the Mayor of San Juan, who apparently doesn’t even agree with the Governor of the Commonwealth.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/30/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-recovery/index.html
Perhaps we should start thinking “about” hurricanes and how they are measured and categorized.
I looked up the Safir-Simpson scale and it seems to be more about the kind and level of damage done than about equal spaces along a yardstick of rising wind speed.
It looks like Safir and Simpson decided that above a certain damage level there was no point in assigning further strength numbers to further-strengthening hurricanes, because if damage is Catastrophic at Category 5, nothing can be more catastrophic than Catastrophic . . . so why bother adding more notches to the scale?
Here is a link to the Safir-Simpson scale and destruction-level “at” each category. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php The biggest distance between assigned categories was between Cat 4 and Cat 5. There is 26mph difference between the lowest Cat 4 and the lowest Cat 5. If we want to create an open-ended evenly-marked scale allowing us to keep naming and comparing various high-end hurricanes to eachother, perhaps we could assign a “level” to each further increment of 26mph beyond the minimum which gets a hurricane called Cat 5 (156mph). So perhaps a Cat 5 hurricane at 156-182mph could be called Category 5 Level 1. A Cat 5 hurricane between 183 – 208 mph could be called Category 5 Level 2. A Cat 5 hurricane between
209 – 234 mph could be called a Category 5 Level 3 hurricane. And each further gain of 26mph windspeed gains the hurricane an assigned Level raised by 1 for each further 26mph windspeed gain.
Tomorrow’s new and improved Global Warming hurricanes of tomorrow will produce new and different kinds of damage. We will want naming-system more specific for a 250mph or a 280 mph hurricane than just saying ” even more catastrophic, ginormicane, tremendicane, tornadicane” and other poetic names for the amazing windspeeds to come over the next few decades.
Sir,
You are a gentleman! that’s a charitable way to say that the guy has no clue, unfortunately.
I have made up my mind, the warming is astronomically caused.
Thank you very kindly, I will try to get that book.
Harry Truman made it clear who is in charge and if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Poor excuses will not change the situation, which was created by inattention.
J,
re:
* Well, that’s remarkably, and Turkey’s grand story of trying to get modern NATO air defence missiles speaks for itself:
Oddly, they didn’t get them. Well, why? Nobody wanted to sell them to Turkey? The corporations sure would have liked the money – that being so, why was that?
Did they have other reasons to deny the missile for Turkey? Well, yes: The US and NATO partners didn’t want to sell THAAD, MEADS, Patriot or Aster to Turkey because they didn’t trust Erdogan …
(a) to not use them on allies,
(b) and/or because they didn’t trust him not to sell the technology to Russia or China,
(c) and/or because they feared he couldn’t/wouldn’t pay.
So, being denied these state-of-the-art weapons because he was not trustable, he went to the next best partner, Russia and bought their S-400. That must have been a deal to make.
IMO one can say whatever one wants about Putin, and I little care about what. Still, what’s quite worth to be kept in mind is that Putin, just like Russians generally, is not a fool. Russians do have a long memory and they do think. Sensible people accept the notion that you sucker Russians only once, they won’t forget and that after the second joke you are made to pay.
So, very likely, Russia hasn’t forgotten the Turks shooting down that Russian fighter over Syria, and they haven’t forgotten that Jihadi ex-copper (without support from police or MIT? Seriously?) murdering the Russian ambassador to Turkey. In the missile deal the Russians likely will have stated their conditions and demands very clearly, and they will likely look closely at Erdogan’s actions.
** To make that absurdity even funnier, Lord Erdogan has just declared that considering, how immensely wealthy and unspeakably successful Turkey currently under ist fantastic leadership is, Turkey doesn’t need a EU membership anymore.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201710011057848138-turkey-eu-membership-erdogan/
Ah yes, so Erdogan will not be the side which gives up? Oh indeed. And as one can clearly see, Turkey is doing just great under Erdogan.
http://oecdobserver.org/news/archivestory.php/aid/435/Turkey_s_crisis.html
https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/turkey
https://www.dailysabah.com/economy/2017/04/29/turkeys-central-bank-raises-2017-inflation-forecast-to-85-pct
https://www.ft.com/content/eb841274-d406-11e6-b06b-680c49b4b4c0
*** And searching jokes I’ll turn to the recent elections in Germany and the ADD: What is ADD? A brandnew pro-turkish party that had Erdogan’s face on their posters in the last federal election in Germany a few weeks ago.
Now, what was that? A turkish president running for Office in Germany? Hardly. Assuming generously that it wasn’t utter arrogance and/or utter stupidity, then what was that clownery about?
Point is, IMO Erdogan was on those posters not because he is so strong he doesn’t need not just the EU but doesn’t need NATO allies also but rather it is quite the opposite of that – it IMO is because he is weak and because he really needs the votes of the Turks who live in Germany and the Netherlands.
It was he and his politicos agitating turks in Germany and the Netherlands that gave him the narrow, iirc ~2,6% ‘grand majority’ in his president constitutional change vote. Hardly a ‘great strength’.
So, if Erdogan thinks he doesn’t need the EU (nor democracy or freedom of press, while at it), the EU is being pushed by his behaviour to understand that they neither need him nor want him, or pay him. So, good riddance.
IMO Erdogan wants everything, he wants it for free.
What Erdogan he will do next … well, a hard question. Generously assuming that the man is thinking, he is so riddled that I still cannot puzzle together whatever happens in his mind.
Though … I have a hunch where it may lead to, and that is that he wants the EU entry talkery to end, and he wants the EU to end it, so he can blame the failure on a foreigner opponent conspiracy – likely he’ll blame the EU, Germany or Netherlands – and while at yelling, he’ll likely add telekinesis, CDU, SPD, FDP, the Greens, Daimler Benz, Lufthansa, German Beer and DAF and KLM. Absurd? Yes, but we had that joke before, it will be re-warmed again.
In Erdogan style yelling games logic or rationality are unimportant. Likely, Erdogan doesn’t dare quitting it himself. He wants to be booted out, and behaves to invite that.
It seems like some of the commentary here has gotten way off topic, while a few of those on topic are just baloney, perhaps influenced by the opportunistic anti-Trump news media. Refutations of the anti-Trump posturing are starting to appear such as a report from last Friday in the Huffington Post quoting a USAF colonel who is also a native of Puerto Rico:
“It’s just not true,” Col. Valle says of the major disconnect today between the perception of a lack of response from Washington verses what is really going on on the ground. “I have family here. My parents’ home is here. My uncles, aunts, cousins, are all here. As a Puerto Rican, I can tell you that the problem has nothing to do with the U.S. military, FEMA, or the DoD.” He goes on to say that the problem is that there are no truck drivers. Their homes are devastated, they’re trying to protect their families, many roads are still blocked, there’s no communication, so they can’t get to work.
“As a Puerto Rican, what happens here for the people is personal to me. To say that we are not provided all of the help and resources needed is just not true,” Col. Valle says. “Distribution is the key, and we are working day and night on it. I’m here, my own family is here, I know how hard this is. We need to keep doing what we are doing. It’s going to take the resource of time.”
the entire piece is worth the read. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-military-on-puerto-rico-the-problem-is-distribution_us_59ce5906e4b0f3c468060dee
I think it depends partially upon where you live. My son-in-law’s father is ex-Army ( he claims he helped interpret for JFK during the Cuban missile crisis) and an engineer living in PR. What little we have heard from him where he lives suggests that the preparation and initial response were not well done. After the first 3-5 days, when the military got involved, things began getting better.
Steve
Babak Makkinejad,
I will have more to say, but not until after I have left the reply I still feel that I owe to MRW’s interesting Greening Earth Society articles about faster plant growth in Australian deserts that he brought to a thread quite a while ago now.
(addendum to different clue comment above) . . .
Now that I think about it, it would be even simpler to just call every further 26mph increment of hurricane 182mph by another S-F number. Just add a number ever 26mph. So . . . Cat 6 hurricane, Cat 7 hurricane, and so on as the future hurricane windspeeds get faster.