6 ms·

Because corrupt local politicians certainly have control over FEMA and other federal agencies that could be tasked with lending assistance.

• rdl 9y ago
  The infrastructure was that bad before the hurricane. The hurricane pushed it over the edge, but the real problem was underinvestment (and malinvestment) in capital plant, maintenance, etc. for decades. The best illustration: telco sector was pretty comprehensively privatized (at the cost of riots and almost civil insurrection) in ~2000. I can get gigabit fiber in much of PR for $60-80/mo, and service (cell and copper voice and cable and fiber) is competitive and largely was restored promptly. There are places on the island where cable providers have to run 20-35KW gensets to power their equipment still, but the Internet is up. There are rural areas where it's still down, but there is decent LTE basically everywhere. Compared to the power network, it's great (and when it's not hurricane damaged, is far better than the US telco situation generally) FEMA/USG response was weak in the first month, but part of that was just the genuine logistical difficulty of supporting Puerto Rico vs. a contiguous state. The scale of the USG response from December 2017 onward has been beyond what I would have expected, and probably pushing the limits of statutory authority for political reasons.