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Puerto Rico governor: "After two hurricanes, this infrastructure has honestly collapsed"
FEMA says it has given $17 million in aid a week after Hurricane Maria struck
San Juan, Puerto RicoCNN
—
Puerto Ricans are struggling with day-to-day survival despite government and military efforts to help get the US commonwealth back on its feet more than a week after Hurricane Maria’s landfall.
Nearly half of gas stations on the island are still closed. Thousands of shipping containers with vital aid are sitting idle at the Port of San Juan. And many banks remain shuttered or low on money, while businesses accept only cash.
“A response to an incident like this is complex, it’s difficult and it’s not nearly as fast as any of us want,” John Rabin, acting regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters Thursday at press conference in San Juan. “Hurricane Maria was catastrophic to Puerto Rico.”
Rabin said that FEMA has given $17 million in aid to the island.
Puerto Rico faces a significant distribution challenge, with about 9,500 containers carrying food, water, medicine and other supplies stuck at San Juan’s port, according to Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.
An official with the shipping company Crowley Maritme said later Thursday that at least 10,000 containers were sitting at the port.
Crowley said Wednesday it alone had 3,000 of those idle containers and had only been able to dispatch 4% of its load.
Roadblocks in delivering aid
A myriad of problems makes it difficult to transport desperately needed aid throughout the island. Among them: Only a fifth of truck drivers have reported back to work at the port, a representative for the governor said Wednesday. It’s impossible to contact many drivers since cell phone service and electricity are still down, and it also remains difficult to get gas for vehicles.
Debris continues to block roads on the island, whose infrastructure needed major repairs even before Maria hit.
An apartment building is missing a wall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Monday, September 25, nearly a week after Hurricane Maria devastated the US commonwealth. Power is still out in most places, and communications remain almost nonexistent on the island of 3.4 million people.
Carolyn Cole/LA Times via Getty Images
Yancy Leon rests at the Luis Mu?oz Marin International Airport near San Juan on September 25. She's been waiting in line for two days to get a flight out.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
An aerial view shows the flooding in San Juan on September 25.
Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
People collect water from a natural spring created by landslides in Corozal, Puerto Rico, on Sunday, September 24. Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said the island faces a humanitarian crisis.
Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty Images
An aerial view shows a flooded neighborhood in Catano, Puerto Rico, on Friday, September 22.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
A man cleans a muddy street in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, on September 22.
HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images
A man walks on a highway divider while carrying his bicycle through San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Thursday, September 21.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
A shack is destroyed in San Juan on September 21.
HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images
A gas station's sign is damaged in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, as the hurricane passed just north of the country on September 21.
ERIKA SANTELICES/AFP/Getty Images
Rescue workers drive through a flooded road in Humacao, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, September 20.
Carlos Giusti/AP
A mattress that fell from the third floor is surrounded by debris outside a San Juan apartment complex on September 20.
The Washington Post/Getty Images
Damage is seen in Roseau, Dominica, on September 20.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
People walk through the destruction in Roseau on September 20.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
San Juan is shrouded in darkness after the hurricane knocked out power to the entire island of Puerto Rico.
Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
Power lines are scattered across a road in Humacao, Puerto Rico, on September 20.
Carlos Giusti/AP
Residents move aluminum panels from an intersection in Humacao on September 20.
Carlos Giusti/AP
Rescue vehicles are trapped under an awning in Humacao on September 20.
Carlos Giusti/AP
Trees are toppled outside the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan on September 20.
HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images
Members of a rescue team embrace as they wait to help in Humacao on September 20.
Carlos Giusti/AP
A tree is damaged in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, on September 20.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
Debris is strewn across a Fajardo street on September 20.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
A woman closes her property in Naguabo, Puerto Rico, hours before Maria's arrival.
Carlos Giusti/AP
People take shelter at Puerto Rico's Humacao Arena on Tuesday, September 19.
Carlos Giusti/AP
Two girls play on cots at the Humacao Arena.
Carlos Giusti/AP
Waves crash in San Juan as the hurricane neared Puerto Rico on September 19.
Jose Rodrigo Madera for CNN
People pray in Humacao on September 19.
Jose Rodrigo Madera for CNN
A street is flooded in Pointe-a-Pitre, on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, on September 19.
Sipa/AP
People stand near debris at a restaurant in Le Carbet, Martinique, on September 19.
LIONEL CHAMOISEAU/AFP/Getty Images
People in Luquillo, Puerto Rico, board up windows of a business on September 19.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
A boat is overturned off the shore of Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe, on September 19.
Dominique Chomereau-Lamotte/AP
Cars line up at a gas station in San Juan on September 19.
Jose Rodrigo Madera for CNN
A motorist drives on the flooded waterfront in Fort-de-France, Martinique, on September 19.
LIONEL CHAMOISEAU/AFP/Getty Images
Floodwaters surround cars in Pointe-a-Pitre on September 19.
Sipa/AP
Soldiers patrol a street in Marigot, St. Martin, as preparations were made for Maria on September 19.
HELENE VALENZUELA/AFP/Getty Images
People buy provisions in Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe, as the hurricane approached on Monday, September 18.
CEDRICK ISHAM CALVADOS/AFP/Getty Images
Customers wait in line for power generators at a store in San Juan on September 18.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
Hurricane Maria slams the Caribbean
“They are problems without precedent,” Rosselló said Thursday at the press conference. “After two hurricanes, this infrastructure has honestly collapsed.”
But Rosselló cited some progress since Maria struck last week, not too long after Hurricane Irma had brushed the island.
He said that 689 of the island’s 1,100 gas stations are operating Thursday. A government-mandated evening curfew to prevent looting on the island is being lifted Thursday for truck drivers carrying essentials, he said, and certain gas stations will be designated just for trucks at night.
Also Thursday, President Donald Trump granted Puerto Rico a 10-day waiver from the Jones Act, a federal law that limits shipping to US ports by foreign vessels. Rosselló had asked the White House to loosen the regulations as a way to speed up aid to the island.
Scrambling for cash
Many Puerto Ricans are running low on money, and banks can’t get enough armored trucks with gas, or truck drivers, to deliver the cash safely. Banks are also struggling to get software and safety systems back online, according to Zoime Alvarez, vice president of the Association of Banks of Puerto Rico.
Rosselló said that 86 bank branches were working as of Thursday.
Banco Popular, one of Puerto Rico’s biggest banks, said Wednesday that 57 of its 169 bank branches were open.
“It will take us awhile. It’s been a big blow,” Ignacio Alvarez, the bank’s president and CEO, told CNN.
Many restaurants, supermarkets and gas stations will only accept cash because credit card systems are still down. The result is long lines almost everywhere in San Juan, with gas stations and supermarkets rationing food and gas.
Hospitals and other medical facilities have been struggling to provide care in Maria’s wake. The lack of working generators and diesel to fuel those generators have put patients at risk.
But 44 of 69 hospitals on the island are now operational, according to FEMA. The Department of Health and Human Services has also established six “super shelters” on the island to provide health care.
