You are currently browsing the daily archive for September 28, 2017.
Yesterday, I wrote about how wrong the Left, including the media, are about relief efforts by America’s FEMA and military in Puerto Rico.
The media are falling over themselves trying to make Maria Donald Trump’s Katrina.
Here is an update on media misinformation about what is currently happening on the devastated island.
USNS Comfort
Yesterday’s post had an item about the US Navy ship Comfort. Hillary Clinton stuck her oar in on Twitter complaining it hadn’t been sent yet.
Afterwards, the Comfort received permission to sail.
As one will discover below, that had nothing to do with Hillary, but the Washington Post made out as if her tweet persuaded President Donald Trump to send the ship.
This is what WaPo reporter Dan Lamothe tweeted:
In reality, because there wasn’t a Puerto Rican port able to receive the Comfort, she could not start her journey.
Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse explains more about Comfort and preparing her (emphases mine below):
The USNS Comfort is a 900′ (length) x 100′ (width) hospital. It was built by modifying a 1970’s era oil tanker (old hull design – non bulbous bow), and it weighs approximately 67,000 tons. It’s essentially still an old oil tanker in water placement design; meaning it needs a port to receive it on arrival.
Additionally, it takes approximately five days to activate Comfort into service. Fueling, supplying, and the engineering to prepare for ocean passage of a massive vessel is a lengthy process. She also needs personnel to arrive and stage etc. All said, the logistics and engineering takes five days prep time.
Sundance, whose Twitter account is The Last Refuge, rightly took on Dan Lamothe over this misinformation (emphases in the original below):
When CTH challenged the WaPo author, Dan Lamothe, about this factual “spin-up” time, and how Comfort was ordered to prepare PRIOR to Clinton’s tweeting about it, Lamothe admits Clinton didn’t have anything to do with Comfort’s activation.
Here is some of the exchange:
Which received this reply from others reading the thread:
https://twitter.com/SurburbanCowboy/status/913080612000481281
It is sad: WaPo shamelessly peddling such a load of old cobblers (nonsense).
As Sundance explains (emphases mine):
USNS Comfort’s activation was put on hold (“stand down”) because: A) there was no port that survived the storm in a capacity able to receive her; and B) the governor of Puerto Rico requested she not be sent …
Puerto Rico is an island. The first job is to get the ports open. Every single aspect of relief and recovery is dependent on getting all ports operational. Nothing matters more.
That is exactly what FEMA, Homeland Security (coast guard), and the U.S. Navy understood even before the hurricane hit the island. All assets were staged to ensure the first job was to get the ports open.
The relief lag, and any supply deficiency, is specifically related to the time it took (and takes) to open the ports.
FEMA
That conveniently brings me to FEMA.
Brock Long, the FEMA administrator, gave a brief interview to Fox News. The reporter challenges him about petrol distribution on the island. He explains all the efforts going on to make that possible. In some places, petrol is available, but Governor Rossello has rightly rationed it to 10 gallons per person. The reporter doesn’t seem to get it, thinking there is no petrol, so why not lift the Jones Act, which was done for Florida after Hurricane Irma. Brock Long tells her that the petrol is there, it just needs to get distributed once roads are clear — and electricity is restored in order to operate the pumps:
Sundance had a good column on this, excerpted below. He points out another issue, which is that drivers have not shown up to transport petrol and basic necessities:
The lifting of the “Jones Act” to allow any flagged ocean carrier to deliver supplies is not needed because the ports are backlogged with ample supplies and fuel while the Puerto Rican government does nothing to transport them.
Neither FEMA, nor the DoD, can be expected to take the place of municipal authorities; yet that is exactly what it appears the Puerto Rican government expects.
FUBAR.
If you want to see proof of this, CBS News correspondent David Begnaud shows full containers just waiting to be unloaded and transported. He also talks about the clear absence of lorries and drivers. No one knows if they cannot get to work or if, as Sundance says, they expect FEMA and the military to transport them. This is worth watching:
Thomas P Bossert, President Trump’s assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, gave this update yesterday:
Puerto Rico’s governor is going to have to see where his men are to help deliver fuel and supplies.
Geraldo Rivera
Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera has been sent to Puerto Rico to cover news there as well as find his family members.
Part of this video shows him finding his Aunt Ellie. A tree fell through her house. She is unharmed, fortunately, and Geraldo — as he has been known for decades — later helped clear the tree:
He says in the video that families are worried about their loved ones. With the phone masts down, there is no way they can contact them.
Rivera said elsewhere that he is pledging $10 million of his own money to the Maria relief and rebuilding efforts.
Although his video above is good, it should be noted that Geraldo gives a positive version of events when he appears on Fox and Friends and a negative one when he appears later in the day on Shepard Smith’s show.
Two different audiences, two different versions of events.
Looting
Looting started in some areas of Puerto Rico as soon as Maria left the island.
Spare a prayer for this man who manages a supermarket that got looted — and for his boss, the owner.
Don’t think that these are hungry young men. They were very energetic when breaking in — and destroying the whole store, which is now flooded. These young criminals stole alcohol, cigarettes and meat. They broke into cash registers. They broke the shop’s industrial lift. Everything will have to be replaced.
Even the CNN guy had to back off asking whether we shouldn’t have sympathy for these vandals. The manager politely stated that they looted for personal benefit:
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/913223288595402752
While we pray for all of Puerto Rico, please pray especially for this store manager and the store’s owner as well as others whose livelihoods have been seriously harmed or destroyed by looting.
More tomorrow, specifically on the precarious state of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure.
Churchmouse Campanologist 