SAN JUAN - “We’re continuing to go as fast as we possibly can,” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Commander Lieutenant General Todd Semonite said, briefing journalists on the state of the recovery in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were devastated a month ago by Hurricane Maria.

News reports evaluating the islands exactly a month after the storm hit Sept. 20 say most of the communities on the islands are still without power, and many people are still living in shelters, voanews reported.

Officials in Washington say the fact that the affected communities are on islands, rather than on the U.S. mainland, like the areas affected by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida, is complicating efforts.

“It is very, very hard to just drive hundreds of pole trucks ... down into the Virgin Islands and down into Puerto Rico, Semonite said in Friday’s briefing.

No. 1 task: Restoring power

Semonite said the first task is to get temporary generators in place for people who are still without power, which some reports say is as much as 80 percent of the people affected by the storm. After that, he said, emergency workers must generate more power. He said Puerto Rico is operating on about 21 percent of the power it needs to supply the island.

Semonite said the task is complicated by the fact that a power plant in the capital, San Juan, declared bankruptcy and shut down in July. He said power wouldn’t be back at 100 percent until that plant is functioning again.

But even though emergency workers are working hard, Semonite said, people living in remote areas will need to live on generated power for a long time, perhaps as long as a year, before the power grid is fully capable of supplying their communities again.

“Every single thing we could possibly do,” including the federal government, FEMA and the Department of Defense, is to try “to shorten those timelines,” he said.

The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the agency is working with the pharmaceutical and medical supply companies that operate in Puerto Rico in hopes of avoiding shortages of needed medications on the mainland.

Reuters news service reports there are more than 50
plants that make medical devices in Puerto Rico, and they employ about 18,000 people.

Story Date: October 23, 2017