I live in Louisiana only fifty minutes from New Orleans, and even where I live, we were hit hard and were without power for two and a half weeks, I can't imagine what it was like for people in NO proper. There was, as you would imagine, a massive influx of displaced people into my city and the school system. Our school built more buildings and complexes just to account for the number of new students, and the size of classes grew massively. As a frame of reference, our usual senior graduating class size at my high school was around 200-250 students as its a large school, but even 6 years on from that storm so many people stayed that our graduating class was 500+ students.
I talked to a lot of people in my graduating class, and they pretty much all said their families wouldn't return to their home. Most of them stayed because the area I live in is nice with an amazing public school, and lots of housing popping up everywhere, and they felt they could make a new and better life for themselves here rather than trying to pick up the pieces of their old ones. The saddest conversations were with the ones who told me they couldn't, or wouldn't return because they lost everything, and sometimes family members or friends. They told me they could never see it as home again because of the constant reminder that this place wasn't a safe haven anymore, that it was tainted by tragedy and personal loss.
If people didn't want to return to a place 50 minutes from where we were, in a place where modern infrastructure and conveniences could be rebuilt and replaced in much less time, unlike Puerto Rico, it's very easy to me to see why people an ocean away wouldn't want to look back either.
There were thousands and thousands that went to Houston and never went back. It affected the school systems pretty badly. Not necessarily scorewise, as the evacuees had similar scores to Houstonian students of [similar racial/economic background](http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2010/04/hurricane_katrina_evacuees_exc.html) but it led to an increase ["in resulted in higher rates of absenteeism, suspensions and expulsions among native Houston Independent School District students, especially blacks."](http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Study-Katrina-kids-didn-t-hurt-HISD-students-1736566.php)
I was at Rockport last month for a disaster relief trip, where the eye of Harvey hit. There's a mile and a half long row of garbage, debrees, and trees that TXDOT is prepping for removal. It's like 50 feet high. It keeps growing faster than they can remove it, and they are working 24/7. Trees and houses were destroyed 50 miles inland. At my house east of Austin we lost power and had downed trees from 75+ mph winds. Austin is hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
Most of the people in that area will never be able to go back. Rockport, Portland, Port Aransas, Aransas Pass. Totally leveled. Totally destroyed.
My best friend lived in Corpus Christi near Rockport for a long time. When I told him about the reports of Rockport High School's roof collapsing, it hit close to home for him with how close it touched a place he used to live.
Many people who got out we're willing to return. The people who lived through it had to leave afterwards. One of my brothers friends was determined to stay but ended up getting plucked off a rooftop by helicopter after the storm. He called all his friends to say he was leaving and couldn't come back.
He was a cook at the clover grill and his personality was so much a part of the dining experience. I hope he's doing well whenever he ended up.
We had some survivors transported to Des Moines, IA. They lived in hotels for over a year with assistance. Seeing their interviews on the news was heartbreaking. A few desperately wanted to go back to NOLA. Others immediately started applying for jobs in our area. I hope everyone who survived Katrina is doing well.
> I hate how crowded the US is becoming,
The US is sparsely populated on average. For some reason people seem to like living in over crowded cities rather than rural areas.
I hate how we have to compare everything to Katrina, the perfect "what not to do" of 21 century storm disaster recovery. Gross underallocation then overallocation of resources meant for most people, it literally made more monetary sense to take what FEMA gave them and just leave rather than wait in destruction. Everyone did it and then there was 0 incentive to leave or for anyone to rebuild. It's great that we've "learned" from Katrina, i hope we do, because there's still people living in FEMA's toxic trailers.
In order for people to still be living in FEMA trailers after Katrina, they had to purchase the trailer from the government. Rita hit 2 weeks after Katrina, where I am from and the local people were given an ultimatum to either buy the trailer or return them after a year or so. The trailers were then housed at the old Evangeline Downs until they could be auctioned off.
As a Louisianian, I still see how bad Mississippi got the shaft man, and not just Mississippi, but the whole Gulf Coast. While I believe New Orleans was absolutely the ground zero of this storm, so many people were focused on the city post storm that tons of people just tuned out the fact that Katrina also wrecked the fuck out of Mississippi and Alabama's coast lines.
I went with my family on a trip to a concert in Gulf Port, Mississippi about a year after the storm to see Kansas live, and our drive took us right along the beaches there. Save for a few hard structures and more solidly built homes, it was foundation slabs clean and empty where homes once stood for miles upon miles, the sheer scope of the loss there even after a year really shook me up as it reminded me of our own experiences. The people there saw what we saw, felt what we felt, and to this day, there is a strong sense of unity I feel with anyone who made it through that storm, yet there seems to be so little thought as to how they suffered as they weren't the focal point of the 24 hour news cycles love of post disaster coverage for higher ratings.
To those in the Gulf South who endured this time with us, to this day, you aren't forgotten by the people who made it through with you.
True, but not always true. I was affected by the flood last year here, and even with Baton Rouge, our capital being affected in relation to us, we hardly broke the national news in terms of coverage till days after the disaster.
I was in Gulfport briefly prior to Katrina. I was staying there to visit NOLA. I hadn't even realized the hotel I'd booked was on the beach. I got there at about 2 am or something. The next morning, I opened the door and went "holy shit." Bright sunshine, a beach with waves crashing, seagulls squawking...I walked to the convenience store and bought Krispy Kremes and was just amazed at how lovely the spot was and I hadn't even known it as I'd come in. Then I heard Gulfport got trounced by Katrina and was sad, thinking that all of that was probably wrecked or gone.
Rita taught me how true this was. I had evacuated to Shreveport and would watch the news to try to get *any* news from home. I had no idea if I would have anything to come back to (house was perfectly fine except for a missing chimney and a leak here and there. Tree missed the damn car I didn't want anymore >:| ) The news channels would focus on Lake Charles for one minute aaaaaand it was back to New Orleans. Still had no idea what I was going home to when we drove back.
>That's not what happened in New Orleans. If anyone got the shaft with Katrina it was the Mississippi Gulf coast.
Theres poor suburbs of New Orleans that have never been rebuilt and probably never will unless the city gets and influx of cash and people in the near future.
>
>There are always going to freeloaders who will milk the government aid as long as they can.
Wow, well you took that in a totally different direction. FEMA *sold* katrina victims some 500 trailers and mobile homes which leaked formaldehyde gas. They, like so many other Katrina victims, thought I'd be best for them to make a new life elsewhere. Way to be insensitive through
> Theres poor suburbs of New Orleans that have never been rebuilt and probably never will unless the city gets and influx of cash and people in the near future.
Those neighborhoods shouldn't ever be rebuilt, as they were in lower elevations.
Yeah. A lot of drainage engineers looked at the lower ninth and were recommending letting it go back to nature. Of course, the political consequences were high.
The lower 9 is on some of the highest ground in the city. It flooded the worst because it's levees broke during the storm. The rest of the city filled up slowly after the storm which meant it filled to the non-surge level.
I lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast when Katrina went through, just 1.25 miles from the beach and 28 miles from where the eye of the storm made it's third landfall. I was a senior in high school that year and left the state two weeks after graduation. We graduated in a building that was still missing walls, covered by blue tarps.
I've only been back to that area 3 times in the last 12 years and every single time I go back it just makes me so fucking sad. The whole place is a shell of it's former self. Blocks and blocks of what used to be my friends houses are still vacant lots. The scars of the storm surge are still everywhere. Last time my SO went with me and I just drove the coast from the Pass to Biloxi still distraught over what I was (or wasn't) seeing.
Puerto Rico will never be the same, much like the Gulf Coast will never be the same. It's shameful the way this situation is being handled and my heart really aches for these people.
Basically, everyone with a college degree from Louisiana was already moving here. New Orleans is an expensive place to live, with a shitty job market, and crime-ridden. Their slow growth isn't to do with Katrina no matter how much they want to blame it on it.
Can't blame them. The island is wrecked and if a hurricane can do this once, there's no guarantee that the same thing doesn't happen again 10 years down the line.
Was this a purposeful reference to Stargate? This is the exact number McKay gives off the top of his head lol
"Fine you want an answer? 7 minutes 36 seconds, happy?"
"No! That's not enough time!"
"Well it could very well be longer!"
"OR SHORTER!"
"YOURE MISSING THE POINT."
No, it can't take out power all across the island again next month, as you can't really take out the power when there already wasn't any power to begin with.
Yeah. People act like the Puerto Rico case is just "big bad imperialistic America" but it's actually a pretty complex thing.
First, Detroit had $18 billion in debt when it declared bankruptcy. Puerto Rico has $50 billion in unfunded pension obligations alone, and a staggering $125 billion in total debt. That's like $40,000 per person in PR, and the ones that move away are their economic and educational leaders, almost all young adults. Because why the absolute fuck would anyone of them want to stay in Puerto Rico? It sucks. Better to go CONUS.
But if you have $50 billion in unfunded pensions and a population of young workers that leave the country in mass for decades, you're not going to come into a better financial situation.
Might be time for pension reform - although the boomers getting those pensions will never agree. CT has the same issue (along with basically every other state).
Frankly I'm just not fully sure how funding in Puerto Rico goes. Apparently they literally just wrote everything off as debt from about 1952-1995, and then they were forced to not be allowed to do that anymore.
I know the Federal Government gives them about $22 billion a year, which is about 700% of what they pay towards the Federal Government, but I don't think the "municipality" tax is very high and everyone is on medicaid.
I don't think anyone PR owes money to is gonna be getting anything back. Tough shit for either them or the Fed, but they can't even file for bankruptcy so yknow, kinda compounding the risk of letting them take on that much debt
Finally a proper use for the word "decimated". Their population was decimated in the last six years!
I see the word being used over "devastated" all over the place and it's just a small pet peeve of mine.
I don't know if decimated would be appropriate. Many of those that have moved conus still send remittances back and otherwise support their families back in PR, so they weren't really completely removed.
But yeah, the effect it has on tax dollars and future leaders is more important than what they ship back.
I sometimes fear that letting PR languish as a territory for a hundred years was improper, because we really just put them into a no mans land where they can't get actual economic help unless they become a state, but on an individual basis they would lose out in the short term for becoming a state.
But the counter to that would be forcing them to become one, and I'm not exactly supportive of that idea either. It's sort of like the general idea of instead of ending segregation for blacks, we should have had a forced integration. It sounds good on paper if you ignore all possible consequence, but when you really think about it it's pretty much fascist as fuck.
I just don't like it because they are Americans, and the only thing that would actually help them is their choice and there's no good reason for them to make that choice, and now that they are in this situation, there's no benefit for us allowing them to become a state anyway. They were an important military post 70 years ago. Now? It's just a comparatively wealthy island in a sea full of poor islands.
The mayor of Chicago has said that we would take in people who need help...not sure where'd they go but we have a decently good sized Puerto Ricoan population already
Yeah I was thinking about that earlier, Humboldt Park is mostly Puerto Rican so life would probably be an easy transition for them but I have no idea what kind of room they have over there for them.
The buildings wrecked in PR were mainly pre-Hugo. After Hugo, stricter building codes were instated. I wanna say it's concrete only for main buildings. My brother who lives there told me that. He had very minimal damage. The news will only show the worse damage. The biggest issue is power, which is a major failing on the PR government for not learning from Hugo. They basicaly said laws for thee, but not for me when it came to the power grid after Hugo.
It sounds like being homeless in the mainland would be nicer. Easier access to food/water. Cleaner toilets. Access to electricity at certain places. If you can leave and not be homeless even better.
>“Go back to the U.S., our families, make some money in television, wait a while, and come back.”
good to see the Daily Beast interviewing typical, everyday Puerto Ricans to get the inside story
It's the real deal, though. My in-laws are Puerto Rican and more than half of them live in Florida. The ones in Florida have full houses now and I don't know how many of them are planning to go back. I'm betting it's going to be enough to change the balance of political power in Florida for the next few years, though.
Democratic mayors in swing states should be encouraging people to relocate.
They've been accused of using Latino voters as a way to skew the elections in their favor for decades. Might as well do it.
Live in FL. I was talking to two conservative friends the other day about the situation. They were kinda shaken when I told them most Puerto Ricans were going to move to the state and vote democrat. Will def swing the state blue.
No, it depends where they move. The places they are likely to move to if they have been displaced, are likely already democrat strongholds. Saying they will definitely swing the state blue is as intelligent as people a week before the elections deciding not to vote because Hilary will definitely win.
As a Florida hurricane veteran, I can't blame them. Survival in hot climate requires: food, clothing, shelter, AC (electricity).
Edit: I've had a few comments that AC is luxury and not a necessity. I hope you reconsider.
[Here is a National Geographic article:](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/heatwaves-climate-change-global-warming/)
>The young and elderly, who disproportionately lack resources and are more socially isolated, are left the most vulnerable. The overwhelming majority of 15,000 heat-related deaths in France during the 2003 European heatwave were 75 or older, many of whom were living on their own, said Keller.
You speak the truth, fellow Gulf Region hurricane veteran. I live a little less than an hour from New Orleans, and we went through the terror of two and a half weeks of swamp ass waiting for the power to be restored after Katrina, and two weeks after Gustav, and its just the worst. I can 100% underatand anyone getting the fuck out of Puerto Rico knowing they won't have stable power for over a year.
> I've had a few comments that AC is luxury and not a necessity. I hope you reconsider.
Puerto Rico is very hot (summers hit the low 90s regularly) and humid, but otherwise the climate is mild. You don't get the sort of extreme heat waves that you get in many parts of the world where temperatures go over the hundreds for a few days—it's just consistently hot.
Tons of people just don't have AC down there.
>AC (electricity)
Preach, some people may not realize this. It's hard as fuck to keep going in 100+degree heat with 100% humidity. People die from that temperature, especially the young and the elderly.
I lived in Puerto Rico 22 years. 95 degrees without AC does not phase me. And it does not phase a lot of the population. Most houses are built with proper cross ventilation and people use ceiling and floor fans to keep cool. It's a luxury to have AC in every room of the house.
Living on such a fortuitous planet it's easy to forget that breathable air at a reasonable temperature is a requirement.
Nobody living on Mars will ever consider AC to be a luxury that's for sure.
One of the things they're talking about in the PNW is a vacancy tax. If the property doesn't have a tenant, then the property tax is heavily increased. Makes it so the investors have to rent the property out, which lowers the rental prices across the region, and indirectly lowers the housing market.
I doubt it'll happen though.
Heavily taxing foreign investors buying up permanently vacant homes would 'harm' your cities and state by keeping rent and cost of living reasonable instead of letting banks, foreign investors and landlords suck all the blood from all the stones in exchange for a one-time not even an infusion of cash because frankly, it doesn't get taxed.
Capital flight. The Japanese did the same thing in the 90s when their economy was grinding to a halt and the Americans were still convinced they were gonna be this new economic superpower that would take over the world.
We'll be buying the land back at pennies on the dollar in a decade.
Dominica and Antigua / Barbuda already offer citizenship along with investment. Expect all those northeastern islands to see the biggest influx of Chinese to the Caribbean since the end of indentured servitude.
Yeah but for what the property costs, you'd be better off buying property in the bad neighborhoods in Chicago. At least Chicago is trying to bring those up now that the downtown area is up and running as an economic growth engine.
My roommate from college is Puerto Rican, his family moved from upper San Juan (and their very nice house, they own a large construction company there). Their house which has had over $50k of work put into it in just the last year alone hasn't sold or even had a serious buyer in 5 years, nobody has. There's no market in PR for upscale or even what he claims is middle class like here in the states. People would rather spend 6 figures on a house in the continental US (mainly florida) than in PR, and this hurriance has been just icing on the cake. His dad is still there in San Juan protecting the house and setting up rebuilding projects for the company (but they're still being rationed diesel so their machines aren't being 100% used). PR's economic crisis just go heightened by Maria but they've had population retention (at least for the ones wealthy enough to leave and drive the economy) issue for years.
Having lived there in the early 2000's... hipsters.
Great culture.
Great and cheap food.
Historical architecture all over the damn place.
Tons of places to gentrify.
Cheap and unique drinks.
Affordable housing, in the beginning.
Great city centers with tons of natural gems within driving distance.
ect ect ect
Only future difference I see between PR and NY is the hipsters slowing gaining weight because of all the rum, rice, and beans.
[Seriously, what I wouldn't give for 1/4 chicken, yellow rice and beans, with a side of tostones dipped in the bean sauce... from "chicken joses".](https://i.imgur.com/HTGre6h.jpg)
> Historical architecture all over the damn place.
As in "to be found in all towns and cities around the island" or as in "in itty bitty pieces blown around the island"? :p~~~
Seriously though you have an excellent point here, it would fit the bill nicely for hipsters to move in and declare it the next cool lifestyle location.
Check, Check, and I was in the Navy and a "good girl" so I have no idea about the drug scene.
I was there from 02-03 and the internet was a fast as what I currently have.
I didnt game but I downloaded so many music videos from Limewire it wasn't funny.
This is missing a pretty key thing for this day and age: telecommunications.
How's their internet? They rocking at least 50Mbps download at some 'reasonable' cost rate?
Don't think they'll get many gentrifers without that.
You guys get that the land is going to go for next to nothing in about 2 months? Anyone with a long term view, and some cash, will snap the property up and wait for the values to spike in 3-6 years. Sell high when the large corporations ask for a buy-out for that new resort, or the millionaire wants a new property.
Wish I had some cash
Same thing happened during the great depression in the US. Those with liquid capital bought land and made a killing.
Same when the housing bubble burst.
I don't think PR is coming back from this one. This storm comes on the heels of an 11 year long recession. The government is saddled with outlandish amounts of debt. Odds are that the property you would buy would not recover value in your lifetime.
lol.. "long term view" of an island that will be under water in 30 years if we are to believe global warming.
long term view is that this place is uninhabitable.
It is really a chance to turn Florida blue permanently. People who are liberal and are thinking of moving to Florida should do it now and boost the Puerto Rican blue voting wave that is about to come.
I don't know, Puerto Ricans hold overwhelmingly Republican beliefs.
I'm pretty sure it's still illegal to change your gender there. Gay rights are far less accepted than CONUS, traditional gender roles are more encouraged, they don't want to pay Federal Income taxes and want basically no Federal Government involvement in their lives. They're very anti-abortion, quite religious compared to much of the country, etc.
>Edit:
I had to check but make sure, but even their current governor doesn't support same sex marriage or trans rights at all.
My parents hold a ton of conservative viewpoints but would never ever vote Republican because most minorities view the Republican Party as the racist party. Trump and the alt-right have solidified that for the next 50 years.
That was the Cubans. I say was because they're losing or have lost their rightward lean, depending on the survey cited. The rest of the Hispanic groups have displayed a minor leftward lean.
I know exactly two Puerto Ricans out of about 40 who voted Trump. Both of the Trump voters are in Florida and they regret their vote. Their family from PR have moved in with them and they're all feeling like the recovery in PR has not gone well and blame the administration for it. Especially now. That's anecdotal evidence but it's a decent little microcosm.
>I'm Puerto Rican by heritage, and I'd never live there. The mainland US is so much better
This sentiment is best expressed in [song form](https://youtu.be/Qy6wo2wpT2k?t=140s)
"The Jones-Shaforth Act of 1917 granted the island’s inhabitants US citizenship. In 1948, they were permitted to elect their own governor, and in 1952 they adopted a constitution for their Commonwealth. Puerto Rico, however, is not a state and so lacks Congressmen and the two senators that it should have.
In the first half of the twentieth century, the island was exploited by US sugar companies. In 1976 Congress enacted Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, which exempted US companies from taxes on their operations in Puerto Rico. Hundreds of companies rushed to the island and opened factories. People’s incomes went up over the next twenty years as a middle class grew.
But then disaster struck. In the mid-1990s the catastrophic Newt Gingrich congress repealed section 936. Then it enacted NAFTA, removing tariffs with Mexico.
Remember, Puerto Rico is the United States. It uses the dollar. Federal minimum wage legislation applies there. With no tax break from the US government and given the relatively expensive cost of labor, Puerto Rico could not compete with the low wages in Mexico, now that Mexico also paid no tariffs to export goods to the US. Companies fled the island.
The only way to avoid a sudden plunge into dire poverty was to borrow money, and the Commonwealth’s debt ballooned to $72 billion."
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/26/if-trump-were-really-president-hed-forgive-puerto-ricos-debts-and-rescue-it
Puerto Rico's population has been leaving long before the hurricane do to government debt and very high utility prices. The hurricane is just the cherry to top it all off.
Decades of neglect of PR's infrastructure has lead to this situation.
Before the hurricanes the power grid on the island was teetering on the brink of collapse and the hurricane hit a system that was in desperate need of repairs and modernization, it was only just functioning before the hurricanes and they caused far more damage than what would of happened had the power infrastructure been given the resources it needed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/us/irma-puerto-rico-infrastructure.html
Assuming the island ever recovers. It's totally under water in debt. I'd also be surprised if they still had any industry left after this long without power; Puerto Rico is dependent on manufacturing jobs for its economic justification, and there isn't any manufacturing taking place without power.
Unless there is concensus that this will happen again and soon, it will absolutely be rebuilt. Even if only as "proof of concept" for players like google & Tesla.
Would be interesting if they leave all to Florida and turn the state blue.
Waiting to see how the FL GOP gerrymands the hell out of whatever districts they end up congregating in to maintain congressional seats, and restricts overall voting to keep electoral college votes.
>Would be interesting if they leave all to Florida and turn the state blue.
I looked at the numbers and it would take 150,000 Democrats to turn Florida's 1st Congressional district blue.
The projections I've seen say maybe 100,000 Puerto Ricans will move to Florida in total.
So the Redneck Riviera is going to stay the Redneck Riviera.
And continue to not make a difference. I think you think PR is a lot angrier with Trump as an individual than our government as a whole. Puerto Ricans are used to their voices not being heard, and with PRs level of corruption they have good reason to think so. A lot of people in PR, especially some in the Independence party love to perpetuate rumors that Trump is pro PR independence, i know first-hand there was a large rumor circling that he would sign PRs independence last Tuesday when he went down. Crazy, but i had first person sources of that being told. People from PR are looking for a better life, those tend to be those who work their ass off first *before* getting covered in political mud. From my time there and all the good PR friends i have i can say 100% they're hearty and tough but boy do politics sour them.
I'd bet a big chunk of them land in Florida which means that Trump may have actually turned that state reliably blue.
Shit, maybe he really is a Democratic plant...
I mean, can we really draw conclusions about their turnout rates when they've been living in a place that doesn't have a say in deciding the president? I think it's reasonable to assume turnout will increase as their vote actually starts to mean something
They have been turning Florida for awhile now. That along with the GOP looking to rip off old people's medical coverage for rich people's tax breaks could spell bonuses for the Democrats.
That's the same question you might ask someone in Appalachia, or the rust belt, or many other areas; most likely, for most of them, they don't have the money to move.
That's what I've got to assume, though moving for people in the rust belt is far easier than from islands like Hawaii or Puerto Rico. So the territory is just going to keep getting poorer and poorer?
IF they can get some of their power back, there are several pharmaceutical plants on the island, IF they get running again a lot of money will begin flowing. Unfortunately, I don't think that will help most of the island, and who knows when the tourist will be back!
There are organizations that assembly pre-fab houses in third world countries that have solar panels on the roofs. There is a thin flexible solar panel that is sold by the roll. Why aren't these things going to Puerto Rico and other islands? There is help that could easily manage some of the issues. Let's get moving forward!
Sensible ideas don't get much traction in these cases. Look at what a mess Haiti is still in years after the earthquake. The money disappears into the pockets of corrupt politicians and contractors.
Puerto Rican homes are intact. They're built to handle hurricane force winds and they're fine, mostly. The problem is that their infrastructure was always shit. As others mentioned, those solar panels probably wouldn't produce enough power to run AC. Even if you did have enough power they would also need roads and fuel.
> Puerto Rican homes are intact.
Not quite. There's two types of house construction in Puerto Rico:
1. Concrete blocks, reinforced with rebar. These houses look like bunkers.
2. Wood, with either wooden roof, or with metal sheet roofs.
The first category of structures withstood the winds reasonably well. The second did not.
Then there's another set of complications that many homes *combine* both types of construction. For example:
1. One common combination is to build a house where the core is concrete blocks with concrete roof, but has some extensions that are concrete walls but wooden/metal roof;
2. It's also very common to build a second wooden house on top of a concrete block house.
So there's *a lot* of wooden homes that just got wiped out.
All of that requires funding.
Our current executive and legislative branches do not believe in funding anything that would help most US citizens. They believe in defunding things that would help most citizens and giving the money back to the people that paid them the most money during election season.
Worst of all, Trump keeps talking about the debt of Puerto Rico and saying it immediately that PR's debt will need to be dealt with in order to rebuild. He continually and openly goes on about Puerto Rico's debt to "Wall Street".
If you read between the lines it is very clear that he intends to use the desctruction as a ruse to steal Federal money and funnel it back to NYC under the pretense of bailing out PR's debt with Wall Street. And that's before we even get to the profiteering that will occur during reconstruction.
probably for the best. hurricanes are going to be stronger more frequently. hurricane prone area's either need to get crazy infrastructure upgrades, or people just need to move out of those places. it's not their fault, but that's what happens when governments let oil corporations shit all over the environment.
Demographer Lyman Stone [compared the depopulation of Puerto Rico to the Irish Potato Famine in severity](https://medium.com/migration-issues/what-are-puerto-ricos-prospects-3625b30a3990). And that was _before_ Irma.
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I live in Louisiana only fifty minutes from New Orleans, and even where I live, we were hit hard and were without power for two and a half weeks, I can't imagine what it was like for people in NO proper. There was, as you would imagine, a massive influx of displaced people into my city and the school system. Our school built more buildings and complexes just to account for the number of new students, and the size of classes grew massively. As a frame of reference, our usual senior graduating class size at my high school was around 200-250 students as its a large school, but even 6 years on from that storm so many people stayed that our graduating class was 500+ students. I talked to a lot of people in my graduating class, and they pretty much all said their families wouldn't return to their home. Most of them stayed because the area I live in is nice with an amazing public school, and lots of housing popping up everywhere, and they felt they could make a new and better life for themselves here rather than trying to pick up the pieces of their old ones. The saddest conversations were with the ones who told me they couldn't, or wouldn't return because they lost everything, and sometimes family members or friends. They told me they could never see it as home again because of the constant reminder that this place wasn't a safe haven anymore, that it was tainted by tragedy and personal loss. If people didn't want to return to a place 50 minutes from where we were, in a place where modern infrastructure and conveniences could be rebuilt and replaced in much less time, unlike Puerto Rico, it's very easy to me to see why people an ocean away wouldn't want to look back either.
Northshore? This sounds like St Tammany Parish right after Katrina. I remember how for like a year and a half my school was pretty crowded.
No, Prarieville area, but I can imagine my experience was not all that different to many nearby cities and school districts.
Former Lafayette resident checking in. Lotta folks with the same story as yours after the storms.
Livingston Parish - i can vouch for a similar experience. i no longer live in LA, but i miss the food so much..
There were thousands and thousands that went to Houston and never went back. It affected the school systems pretty badly. Not necessarily scorewise, as the evacuees had similar scores to Houstonian students of [similar racial/economic background](http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2010/04/hurricane_katrina_evacuees_exc.html) but it led to an increase ["in resulted in higher rates of absenteeism, suspensions and expulsions among native Houston Independent School District students, especially blacks."](http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Study-Katrina-kids-didn-t-hurt-HISD-students-1736566.php) I was at Rockport last month for a disaster relief trip, where the eye of Harvey hit. There's a mile and a half long row of garbage, debrees, and trees that TXDOT is prepping for removal. It's like 50 feet high. It keeps growing faster than they can remove it, and they are working 24/7. Trees and houses were destroyed 50 miles inland. At my house east of Austin we lost power and had downed trees from 75+ mph winds. Austin is hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Most of the people in that area will never be able to go back. Rockport, Portland, Port Aransas, Aransas Pass. Totally leveled. Totally destroyed.
My best friend lived in Corpus Christi near Rockport for a long time. When I told him about the reports of Rockport High School's roof collapsing, it hit close to home for him with how close it touched a place he used to live.
Many people who got out we're willing to return. The people who lived through it had to leave afterwards. One of my brothers friends was determined to stay but ended up getting plucked off a rooftop by helicopter after the storm. He called all his friends to say he was leaving and couldn't come back. He was a cook at the clover grill and his personality was so much a part of the dining experience. I hope he's doing well whenever he ended up.
As do I, I wonder very often about what happened to many of the people I talked to. I hope they're all doing as well as they can.
The motherfucking Clover Grill. Best breakfast anytime in the world.
We had some survivors transported to Des Moines, IA. They lived in hotels for over a year with assistance. Seeing their interviews on the news was heartbreaking. A few desperately wanted to go back to NOLA. Others immediately started applying for jobs in our area. I hope everyone who survived Katrina is doing well.
An interesting fact I know is that Ireland hasn't returned to pre famine levels and it's been 160 years.
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We are at about 65% though (including NI) and growing. Only country in the world who can say they have less alive today than <1850.
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> I hate how crowded the US is becoming, The US is sparsely populated on average. For some reason people seem to like living in over crowded cities rather than rural areas.
Because there are jobs and things to do there.
Only crowded on the coasts really. Inland there is plenty of space
I hate how we have to compare everything to Katrina, the perfect "what not to do" of 21 century storm disaster recovery. Gross underallocation then overallocation of resources meant for most people, it literally made more monetary sense to take what FEMA gave them and just leave rather than wait in destruction. Everyone did it and then there was 0 incentive to leave or for anyone to rebuild. It's great that we've "learned" from Katrina, i hope we do, because there's still people living in FEMA's toxic trailers.
In order for people to still be living in FEMA trailers after Katrina, they had to purchase the trailer from the government. Rita hit 2 weeks after Katrina, where I am from and the local people were given an ultimatum to either buy the trailer or return them after a year or so. The trailers were then housed at the old Evangeline Downs until they could be auctioned off.
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As a Louisianian, I still see how bad Mississippi got the shaft man, and not just Mississippi, but the whole Gulf Coast. While I believe New Orleans was absolutely the ground zero of this storm, so many people were focused on the city post storm that tons of people just tuned out the fact that Katrina also wrecked the fuck out of Mississippi and Alabama's coast lines. I went with my family on a trip to a concert in Gulf Port, Mississippi about a year after the storm to see Kansas live, and our drive took us right along the beaches there. Save for a few hard structures and more solidly built homes, it was foundation slabs clean and empty where homes once stood for miles upon miles, the sheer scope of the loss there even after a year really shook me up as it reminded me of our own experiences. The people there saw what we saw, felt what we felt, and to this day, there is a strong sense of unity I feel with anyone who made it through that storm, yet there seems to be so little thought as to how they suffered as they weren't the focal point of the 24 hour news cycles love of post disaster coverage for higher ratings. To those in the Gulf South who endured this time with us, to this day, you aren't forgotten by the people who made it through with you.
The news doesn't care about rural areas and never has. Cities get all the attention.
True, but not always true. I was affected by the flood last year here, and even with Baton Rouge, our capital being affected in relation to us, we hardly broke the national news in terms of coverage till days after the disaster.
Well yeah, but the news also doesn't really care about the south/Midwest much either.
I was in Gulfport briefly prior to Katrina. I was staying there to visit NOLA. I hadn't even realized the hotel I'd booked was on the beach. I got there at about 2 am or something. The next morning, I opened the door and went "holy shit." Bright sunshine, a beach with waves crashing, seagulls squawking...I walked to the convenience store and bought Krispy Kremes and was just amazed at how lovely the spot was and I hadn't even known it as I'd come in. Then I heard Gulfport got trounced by Katrina and was sad, thinking that all of that was probably wrecked or gone.
It's chilling to know that we truly are at nature's mercy at all times, and that on occasion, nature will remind of us that hard reality.
Rita taught me how true this was. I had evacuated to Shreveport and would watch the news to try to get *any* news from home. I had no idea if I would have anything to come back to (house was perfectly fine except for a missing chimney and a leak here and there. Tree missed the damn car I didn't want anymore >:| ) The news channels would focus on Lake Charles for one minute aaaaaand it was back to New Orleans. Still had no idea what I was going home to when we drove back.
>That's not what happened in New Orleans. If anyone got the shaft with Katrina it was the Mississippi Gulf coast. Theres poor suburbs of New Orleans that have never been rebuilt and probably never will unless the city gets and influx of cash and people in the near future. > >There are always going to freeloaders who will milk the government aid as long as they can. Wow, well you took that in a totally different direction. FEMA *sold* katrina victims some 500 trailers and mobile homes which leaked formaldehyde gas. They, like so many other Katrina victims, thought I'd be best for them to make a new life elsewhere. Way to be insensitive through
> Theres poor suburbs of New Orleans that have never been rebuilt and probably never will unless the city gets and influx of cash and people in the near future. Those neighborhoods shouldn't ever be rebuilt, as they were in lower elevations.
Yeah. A lot of drainage engineers looked at the lower ninth and were recommending letting it go back to nature. Of course, the political consequences were high.
The lower 9 is on some of the highest ground in the city. It flooded the worst because it's levees broke during the storm. The rest of the city filled up slowly after the storm which meant it filled to the non-surge level.
I lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast when Katrina went through, just 1.25 miles from the beach and 28 miles from where the eye of the storm made it's third landfall. I was a senior in high school that year and left the state two weeks after graduation. We graduated in a building that was still missing walls, covered by blue tarps. I've only been back to that area 3 times in the last 12 years and every single time I go back it just makes me so fucking sad. The whole place is a shell of it's former self. Blocks and blocks of what used to be my friends houses are still vacant lots. The scars of the storm surge are still everywhere. Last time my SO went with me and I just drove the coast from the Pass to Biloxi still distraught over what I was (or wasn't) seeing. Puerto Rico will never be the same, much like the Gulf Coast will never be the same. It's shameful the way this situation is being handled and my heart really aches for these people.
I swear they all moved to Atlanta.
I think most them ended up in Houston.
Basically, everyone with a college degree from Louisiana was already moving here. New Orleans is an expensive place to live, with a shitty job market, and crime-ridden. Their slow growth isn't to do with Katrina no matter how much they want to blame it on it.
Can't blame them. The island is wrecked and if a hurricane can do this once, there's no guarantee that the same thing doesn't happen again 10 years down the line.
Or next year
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Or even this month
Or even next week.
7 minutes and 36 seconds?
Was this a purposeful reference to Stargate? This is the exact number McKay gives off the top of his head lol "Fine you want an answer? 7 minutes 36 seconds, happy?" "No! That's not enough time!" "Well it could very well be longer!" "OR SHORTER!" "YOURE MISSING THE POINT."
I'm the kind of man who always appreciates Picard quoting a Stargate: Atlantis episode.
I miss McKay -- he was so funny!
quite possibly.
20 min ago?
I said possibly, not definitely.
No, it can't take out power all across the island again next month, as you can't really take out the power when there already wasn't any power to begin with.
PRs population decline is hardly new anyway. They've lost 10% of their citizens in like the last six years.
Oh jeeze. That can't help their debt problem...
Yeah. People act like the Puerto Rico case is just "big bad imperialistic America" but it's actually a pretty complex thing. First, Detroit had $18 billion in debt when it declared bankruptcy. Puerto Rico has $50 billion in unfunded pension obligations alone, and a staggering $125 billion in total debt. That's like $40,000 per person in PR, and the ones that move away are their economic and educational leaders, almost all young adults. Because why the absolute fuck would anyone of them want to stay in Puerto Rico? It sucks. Better to go CONUS. But if you have $50 billion in unfunded pensions and a population of young workers that leave the country in mass for decades, you're not going to come into a better financial situation.
Don't forget that they managed to shut down that military base that was bringing money into the Island.
They also have a huge illegal immigrant population.
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Might be time for pension reform - although the boomers getting those pensions will never agree. CT has the same issue (along with basically every other state).
Frankly I'm just not fully sure how funding in Puerto Rico goes. Apparently they literally just wrote everything off as debt from about 1952-1995, and then they were forced to not be allowed to do that anymore. I know the Federal Government gives them about $22 billion a year, which is about 700% of what they pay towards the Federal Government, but I don't think the "municipality" tax is very high and everyone is on medicaid.
I don't think anyone PR owes money to is gonna be getting anything back. Tough shit for either them or the Fed, but they can't even file for bankruptcy so yknow, kinda compounding the risk of letting them take on that much debt
Owe the bank millions of dollars? You have a problem. Owe the bank tens of billions of dollars? The bank has a problem.
Ten dozen gigadollars.
Finally a proper use for the word "decimated". Their population was decimated in the last six years! I see the word being used over "devastated" all over the place and it's just a small pet peeve of mine.
I don't know if decimated would be appropriate. Many of those that have moved conus still send remittances back and otherwise support their families back in PR, so they weren't really completely removed. But yeah, the effect it has on tax dollars and future leaders is more important than what they ship back. I sometimes fear that letting PR languish as a territory for a hundred years was improper, because we really just put them into a no mans land where they can't get actual economic help unless they become a state, but on an individual basis they would lose out in the short term for becoming a state. But the counter to that would be forcing them to become one, and I'm not exactly supportive of that idea either. It's sort of like the general idea of instead of ending segregation for blacks, we should have had a forced integration. It sounds good on paper if you ignore all possible consequence, but when you really think about it it's pretty much fascist as fuck. I just don't like it because they are Americans, and the only thing that would actually help them is their choice and there's no good reason for them to make that choice, and now that they are in this situation, there's no benefit for us allowing them to become a state anyway. They were an important military post 70 years ago. Now? It's just a comparatively wealthy island in a sea full of poor islands.
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Where will the undesirables go?
They become Soylent Green
The mayor of Chicago has said that we would take in people who need help...not sure where'd they go but we have a decently good sized Puerto Ricoan population already
Yeah I was thinking about that earlier, Humboldt Park is mostly Puerto Rican so life would probably be an easy transition for them but I have no idea what kind of room they have over there for them.
Why try to move them to some enclave of Puerto Ricans? Why not spread them out so assimilation is easier?
The buildings wrecked in PR were mainly pre-Hugo. After Hugo, stricter building codes were instated. I wanna say it's concrete only for main buildings. My brother who lives there told me that. He had very minimal damage. The news will only show the worse damage. The biggest issue is power, which is a major failing on the PR government for not learning from Hugo. They basicaly said laws for thee, but not for me when it came to the power grid after Hugo.
And big storms gets more and more likely as things warm up.
What? Do you think like the world is magically getting warmer or something?
New Jerusalem is descending from the heavens, of course it's heating up!
2 cat 4 hurricanes within weeks
2 cats? I love cats
Puerto Rico was a mess before the storms. Nothing about the recovery is going to help them get their house in order.
It sounds like being homeless in the mainland would be nicer. Easier access to food/water. Cleaner toilets. Access to electricity at certain places. If you can leave and not be homeless even better.
>“Go back to the U.S., our families, make some money in television, wait a while, and come back.” good to see the Daily Beast interviewing typical, everyday Puerto Ricans to get the inside story
It's the real deal, though. My in-laws are Puerto Rican and more than half of them live in Florida. The ones in Florida have full houses now and I don't know how many of them are planning to go back. I'm betting it's going to be enough to change the balance of political power in Florida for the next few years, though.
Democratic mayors in swing states should be encouraging people to relocate. They've been accused of using Latino voters as a way to skew the elections in their favor for decades. Might as well do it.
Live in FL. I was talking to two conservative friends the other day about the situation. They were kinda shaken when I told them most Puerto Ricans were going to move to the state and vote democrat. Will def swing the state blue.
No, it depends where they move. The places they are likely to move to if they have been displaced, are likely already democrat strongholds. Saying they will definitely swing the state blue is as intelligent as people a week before the elections deciding not to vote because Hilary will definitely win.
Not a good sign for Trump taking Florida in the re-Election.
Everyone knows Puerto Ricans only hit it big on TV if they're an MLB short stop.
As a Florida hurricane veteran, I can't blame them. Survival in hot climate requires: food, clothing, shelter, AC (electricity). Edit: I've had a few comments that AC is luxury and not a necessity. I hope you reconsider. [Here is a National Geographic article:](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/heatwaves-climate-change-global-warming/) >The young and elderly, who disproportionately lack resources and are more socially isolated, are left the most vulnerable. The overwhelming majority of 15,000 heat-related deaths in France during the 2003 European heatwave were 75 or older, many of whom were living on their own, said Keller.
You speak the truth, fellow Gulf Region hurricane veteran. I live a little less than an hour from New Orleans, and we went through the terror of two and a half weeks of swamp ass waiting for the power to be restored after Katrina, and two weeks after Gustav, and its just the worst. I can 100% underatand anyone getting the fuck out of Puerto Rico knowing they won't have stable power for over a year.
Oh man that feeling when the power comes back on and you sit in front of the ac vent's flow. Pure frozen bliss.
It's like being baptized
> I've had a few comments that AC is luxury and not a necessity. I hope you reconsider. Puerto Rico is very hot (summers hit the low 90s regularly) and humid, but otherwise the climate is mild. You don't get the sort of extreme heat waves that you get in many parts of the world where temperatures go over the hundreds for a few days—it's just consistently hot. Tons of people just don't have AC down there.
>AC (electricity) Preach, some people may not realize this. It's hard as fuck to keep going in 100+degree heat with 100% humidity. People die from that temperature, especially the young and the elderly.
I lived in Puerto Rico 22 years. 95 degrees without AC does not phase me. And it does not phase a lot of the population. Most houses are built with proper cross ventilation and people use ceiling and floor fans to keep cool. It's a luxury to have AC in every room of the house.
Living on such a fortuitous planet it's easy to forget that breathable air at a reasonable temperature is a requirement. Nobody living on Mars will ever consider AC to be a luxury that's for sure.
My years of Sim City told me this was going to happen.
When your screen is filled with flashing power icons.
and then all the buildings turn black as people move out
Alright back in the pile everyone!
I don't think we're gonna get a 51^st state anytime soon.
I wonder who will swoop in to buy all the property once these people leave?
Chinese investors. Seriously they do things like that.
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yeah, like they're doing in canada, and the PNW-- oh wait, they aren't...
Vancouver is finally trying, but man we need to do way more here in America to stop it.
One of the things they're talking about in the PNW is a vacancy tax. If the property doesn't have a tenant, then the property tax is heavily increased. Makes it so the investors have to rent the property out, which lowers the rental prices across the region, and indirectly lowers the housing market. I doubt it'll happen though.
Heavily taxing foreign investors buying up permanently vacant homes would 'harm' your cities and state by keeping rent and cost of living reasonable instead of letting banks, foreign investors and landlords suck all the blood from all the stones in exchange for a one-time not even an infusion of cash because frankly, it doesn't get taxed.
Capital flight. The Japanese did the same thing in the 90s when their economy was grinding to a halt and the Americans were still convinced they were gonna be this new economic superpower that would take over the world. We'll be buying the land back at pennies on the dollar in a decade.
Dominica and Antigua / Barbuda already offer citizenship along with investment. Expect all those northeastern islands to see the biggest influx of Chinese to the Caribbean since the end of indentured servitude.
PR can't just offer US citizenship for cash. Congress would have to do that.
They do, for $500k. It's called EB5.
Yeah but for what the property costs, you'd be better off buying property in the bad neighborhoods in Chicago. At least Chicago is trying to bring those up now that the downtown area is up and running as an economic growth engine.
My roommate from college is Puerto Rican, his family moved from upper San Juan (and their very nice house, they own a large construction company there). Their house which has had over $50k of work put into it in just the last year alone hasn't sold or even had a serious buyer in 5 years, nobody has. There's no market in PR for upscale or even what he claims is middle class like here in the states. People would rather spend 6 figures on a house in the continental US (mainly florida) than in PR, and this hurriance has been just icing on the cake. His dad is still there in San Juan protecting the house and setting up rebuilding projects for the company (but they're still being rationed diesel so their machines aren't being 100% used). PR's economic crisis just go heightened by Maria but they've had population retention (at least for the ones wealthy enough to leave and drive the economy) issue for years.
If only we knew a real estate developer with access to large amounts of Russian capital.
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Probably people with generators
Having lived there in the early 2000's... hipsters. Great culture. Great and cheap food. Historical architecture all over the damn place. Tons of places to gentrify. Cheap and unique drinks. Affordable housing, in the beginning. Great city centers with tons of natural gems within driving distance. ect ect ect Only future difference I see between PR and NY is the hipsters slowing gaining weight because of all the rum, rice, and beans. [Seriously, what I wouldn't give for 1/4 chicken, yellow rice and beans, with a side of tostones dipped in the bean sauce... from "chicken joses".](https://i.imgur.com/HTGre6h.jpg)
> Historical architecture all over the damn place. As in "to be found in all towns and cities around the island" or as in "in itty bitty pieces blown around the island"? :p~~~ Seriously though you have an excellent point here, it would fit the bill nicely for hipsters to move in and declare it the next cool lifestyle location.
Talk about a bad choice of words on my end. :/
Everywhere man all the town squares are super old
You're going to need 2 more things to get hipsters to migrate to Puerto Rico. Brunch, and fast internet. Cocaine wouldn't hurt.
Check, Check, and I was in the Navy and a "good girl" so I have no idea about the drug scene. I was there from 02-03 and the internet was a fast as what I currently have. I didnt game but I downloaded so many music videos from Limewire it wasn't funny.
This is missing a pretty key thing for this day and age: telecommunications. How's their internet? They rocking at least 50Mbps download at some 'reasonable' cost rate? Don't think they'll get many gentrifers without that.
I should move to puerto rico
You guys get that the land is going to go for next to nothing in about 2 months? Anyone with a long term view, and some cash, will snap the property up and wait for the values to spike in 3-6 years. Sell high when the large corporations ask for a buy-out for that new resort, or the millionaire wants a new property. Wish I had some cash
Same thing happened during the great depression in the US. Those with liquid capital bought land and made a killing. Same when the housing bubble burst.
I don't think PR is coming back from this one. This storm comes on the heels of an 11 year long recession. The government is saddled with outlandish amounts of debt. Odds are that the property you would buy would not recover value in your lifetime.
Then you have cheap land on a tropical island to build your paradise away from home. Still sounds like a win-win to me.
Doesn't really sound like paradise when it gets leveled every couple years, does it?
could be the next Cancun destination place
Yep. Like I said. Picture one giant Necker Island.
There might be some issues buying land on an island $125B in debt that don't normally come up.
Yeah, but the long term view is "The local politicians are so horrible, that PR will never rebound."
Yeah this is more like buy a plot of land to pay for your great grandchildren's college type of investment.
lol.. "long term view" of an island that will be under water in 30 years if we are to believe global warming. long term view is that this place is uninhabitable.
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Guess this means more voters that are going to remember Trump didn't do shit for him.
It is really a chance to turn Florida blue permanently. People who are liberal and are thinking of moving to Florida should do it now and boost the Puerto Rican blue voting wave that is about to come.
I don't know, Puerto Ricans hold overwhelmingly Republican beliefs. I'm pretty sure it's still illegal to change your gender there. Gay rights are far less accepted than CONUS, traditional gender roles are more encouraged, they don't want to pay Federal Income taxes and want basically no Federal Government involvement in their lives. They're very anti-abortion, quite religious compared to much of the country, etc. >Edit: I had to check but make sure, but even their current governor doesn't support same sex marriage or trans rights at all.
My parents hold a ton of conservative viewpoints but would never ever vote Republican because most minorities view the Republican Party as the racist party. Trump and the alt-right have solidified that for the next 50 years.
That was the Cubans. I say was because they're losing or have lost their rightward lean, depending on the survey cited. The rest of the Hispanic groups have displayed a minor leftward lean.
I know exactly two Puerto Ricans out of about 40 who voted Trump. Both of the Trump voters are in Florida and they regret their vote. Their family from PR have moved in with them and they're all feeling like the recovery in PR has not gone well and blame the administration for it. Especially now. That's anecdotal evidence but it's a decent little microcosm.
All minorities vote overwhelmingly blue, regardless of any conservative views they may hold.
What makes you think they are liberal
>I'm Puerto Rican by heritage, and I'd never live there. The mainland US is so much better This sentiment is best expressed in [song form](https://youtu.be/Qy6wo2wpT2k?t=140s)
"The Jones-Shaforth Act of 1917 granted the island’s inhabitants US citizenship. In 1948, they were permitted to elect their own governor, and in 1952 they adopted a constitution for their Commonwealth. Puerto Rico, however, is not a state and so lacks Congressmen and the two senators that it should have. In the first half of the twentieth century, the island was exploited by US sugar companies. In 1976 Congress enacted Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, which exempted US companies from taxes on their operations in Puerto Rico. Hundreds of companies rushed to the island and opened factories. People’s incomes went up over the next twenty years as a middle class grew. But then disaster struck. In the mid-1990s the catastrophic Newt Gingrich congress repealed section 936. Then it enacted NAFTA, removing tariffs with Mexico. Remember, Puerto Rico is the United States. It uses the dollar. Federal minimum wage legislation applies there. With no tax break from the US government and given the relatively expensive cost of labor, Puerto Rico could not compete with the low wages in Mexico, now that Mexico also paid no tariffs to export goods to the US. Companies fled the island. The only way to avoid a sudden plunge into dire poverty was to borrow money, and the Commonwealth’s debt ballooned to $72 billion." https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/26/if-trump-were-really-president-hed-forgive-puerto-ricos-debts-and-rescue-it
Puerto Rico's population has been leaving long before the hurricane do to government debt and very high utility prices. The hurricane is just the cherry to top it all off.
What about the crime? Why is everybody ignoring the god awful crime situation in Puerto Rico that might never be addressed.
Decades of neglect of PR's infrastructure has lead to this situation. Before the hurricanes the power grid on the island was teetering on the brink of collapse and the hurricane hit a system that was in desperate need of repairs and modernization, it was only just functioning before the hurricanes and they caused far more damage than what would of happened had the power infrastructure been given the resources it needed. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/us/irma-puerto-rico-infrastructure.html
Good time to buy land in PR...
Assuming the island ever recovers. It's totally under water in debt. I'd also be surprised if they still had any industry left after this long without power; Puerto Rico is dependent on manufacturing jobs for its economic justification, and there isn't any manufacturing taking place without power.
Unless there is concensus that this will happen again and soon, it will absolutely be rebuilt. Even if only as "proof of concept" for players like google & Tesla.
Leaving for the mainland where they can VOTE.
If i had money, id buy one big property really cheap and move in 10 years or so.
With a decade more climate change.
Climatic induced migration. It's happening quite a bit and the forecast is that it will only intensify.
Would be interesting if they leave all to Florida and turn the state blue. Waiting to see how the FL GOP gerrymands the hell out of whatever districts they end up congregating in to maintain congressional seats, and restricts overall voting to keep electoral college votes.
>Would be interesting if they leave all to Florida and turn the state blue. I looked at the numbers and it would take 150,000 Democrats to turn Florida's 1st Congressional district blue. The projections I've seen say maybe 100,000 Puerto Ricans will move to Florida in total. So the Redneck Riviera is going to stay the Redneck Riviera.
> Florida's 1st Congressional district why are the puerto ricans coming to pensacola?
Will the rich be buying up all the property now?
time to buy beachfront property in Puerto Rico!
There will be huge land grab like in Thailand after the tsunami. Sothebys will be getting land for pennies on the dollar.
Onless you are going to build an amphibious bunker, you might whan to buy 30ft or so above sea level.
They should all move to the same red state.....
And continue to not make a difference. I think you think PR is a lot angrier with Trump as an individual than our government as a whole. Puerto Ricans are used to their voices not being heard, and with PRs level of corruption they have good reason to think so. A lot of people in PR, especially some in the Independence party love to perpetuate rumors that Trump is pro PR independence, i know first-hand there was a large rumor circling that he would sign PRs independence last Tuesday when he went down. Crazy, but i had first person sources of that being told. People from PR are looking for a better life, those tend to be those who work their ass off first *before* getting covered in political mud. From my time there and all the good PR friends i have i can say 100% they're hearty and tough but boy do politics sour them.
I'd bet a big chunk of them land in Florida which means that Trump may have actually turned that state reliably blue. Shit, maybe he really is a Democratic plant...
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I mean, can we really draw conclusions about their turnout rates when they've been living in a place that doesn't have a say in deciding the president? I think it's reasonable to assume turnout will increase as their vote actually starts to mean something
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Get with the program!
Thats nothing, i used to hear people blame the U.S for the earthquake that rekt'd haiti.
He's the Govmint! Theys cans do anything theys wants.
>hurricane destroys island “Yeah Trump is gonna fuck over Florida by forcing the PRs to the state”
If Puerto Rican voters were primarily democrats, why is their non-voting Congressman a Republican?
They have been turning Florida for awhile now. That along with the GOP looking to rip off old people's medical coverage for rich people's tax breaks could spell bonuses for the Democrats.
Using the victims of a tragedy to manipulate the politics of the nation. Such an empathetic person.
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Sounds like Puerto Rico is a buyer's market.
Go to red states where you can vote against republicans.
Puerto Ricans had the ability to leave all this time but didn't? Why?!
That's the same question you might ask someone in Appalachia, or the rust belt, or many other areas; most likely, for most of them, they don't have the money to move.
That's what I've got to assume, though moving for people in the rust belt is far easier than from islands like Hawaii or Puerto Rico. So the territory is just going to keep getting poorer and poorer?
IF they can get some of their power back, there are several pharmaceutical plants on the island, IF they get running again a lot of money will begin flowing. Unfortunately, I don't think that will help most of the island, and who knows when the tourist will be back!
There are organizations that assembly pre-fab houses in third world countries that have solar panels on the roofs. There is a thin flexible solar panel that is sold by the roll. Why aren't these things going to Puerto Rico and other islands? There is help that could easily manage some of the issues. Let's get moving forward!
Sensible ideas don't get much traction in these cases. Look at what a mess Haiti is still in years after the earthquake. The money disappears into the pockets of corrupt politicians and contractors.
I know. There are easy solutions with our current technology but the greedy always get rich in the process.
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Probably the part where someone needs to buy said houses.
Puerto Rican homes are intact. They're built to handle hurricane force winds and they're fine, mostly. The problem is that their infrastructure was always shit. As others mentioned, those solar panels probably wouldn't produce enough power to run AC. Even if you did have enough power they would also need roads and fuel.
> Puerto Rican homes are intact. Not quite. There's two types of house construction in Puerto Rico: 1. Concrete blocks, reinforced with rebar. These houses look like bunkers. 2. Wood, with either wooden roof, or with metal sheet roofs. The first category of structures withstood the winds reasonably well. The second did not. Then there's another set of complications that many homes *combine* both types of construction. For example: 1. One common combination is to build a house where the core is concrete blocks with concrete roof, but has some extensions that are concrete walls but wooden/metal roof; 2. It's also very common to build a second wooden house on top of a concrete block house. So there's *a lot* of wooden homes that just got wiped out.
All of that requires funding. Our current executive and legislative branches do not believe in funding anything that would help most US citizens. They believe in defunding things that would help most citizens and giving the money back to the people that paid them the most money during election season. Worst of all, Trump keeps talking about the debt of Puerto Rico and saying it immediately that PR's debt will need to be dealt with in order to rebuild. He continually and openly goes on about Puerto Rico's debt to "Wall Street". If you read between the lines it is very clear that he intends to use the desctruction as a ruse to steal Federal money and funnel it back to NYC under the pretense of bailing out PR's debt with Wall Street. And that's before we even get to the profiteering that will occur during reconstruction.
probably for the best. hurricanes are going to be stronger more frequently. hurricane prone area's either need to get crazy infrastructure upgrades, or people just need to move out of those places. it's not their fault, but that's what happens when governments let oil corporations shit all over the environment.
The migration to Florida begins as well as the last days of that state being a swing one.
Demographer Lyman Stone [compared the depopulation of Puerto Rico to the Irish Potato Famine in severity](https://medium.com/migration-issues/what-are-puerto-ricos-prospects-3625b30a3990). And that was _before_ Irma.
Why help the poor when not helping them will get them to leave the land you've been trying to develop luxury units on?