The Puerto Rico Thread

rwguinn said:
Why is Puerto Rico still in the news? I mean, hundreds of people i know have sent truckloads of prayers that way...

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Well, duh! They are using trucks to deliver their prayers! IT'S AN ISLAND! Prayers take longer to get there.
 
Civet said:
Any word on who replaced Whitefish? PREPA always indicated that part of the reason they were chosen was difficulty finding and affording other contractors. I'm curious as to how they're resolving that problem.
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How would they know, the story was always the contract whitefish was up for was not put up for bid to anyone else.
 
rwguinn said:
Why is Puerto Rico still in the news? I mean, hundreds of people i know have sent truckloads of prayers that way...

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They were probably tasty. There's a lot of people there, though, and trucks take time to get from place to place and unload.

ponderingturtle said:
How would they know, the story was always the contract whitefish was up for was not put up for bid to anyone else.
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Not put up for bid?

PREPA made headlines recently for awarding a couple of large contracts that would have spent a lot of FEMA’s money, apparently without the agency’s approval. The first was a $300-million deal with a two-person operation based in Montana called Whitefish Energy that has since been cancelled and is under investigation. Just a few days later PREPA awarded a second questionable contract to pay Cobra Acquisitions, a subsidiary of Oklahoma City–based Mammoth Energy, $200 million even though the small firm has little experience with disaster recovery. The power utility has since turned to utilities in New York State and Florida, whose services FEMA will help pay for. Public and private utilities in New York have already pledged to send 350 utility personnel and 220 vehicles, with more to follow.
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ponderingturtle said:
How would they know, the story was always the contract whitefish was up for was not put up for bid to anyone else.
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Even though the contract was never put out for open bids, PREPA always claimed that they'd had talks with other firms and that they wanted a lot of upfront money that PREPA didn't have. PREPA never gave a convincing explanation for why they didn't use the mutual aid option before and, from the link in the post from Aridas, it looks like they're doing that now.
 
Thermal said:
What do you mean? Is it somehow mandated or commonly done voluntarily?
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A bit of both IMO.

If you're employed then you will receive payment for your contracted hours.

There are a some people on "zero hours" contracts (where no contracted guaranteed hours have given) but that's only in a few countries (the UK is one) and for a small proportion of the workforce.

Laying people off would require the employer to follow the right process which would take a significant period of time.

The reputational damage for a large employer who chose to lay off workers in these circumstances would be considerable and so IMO would likely not happen.
 
The Don said:
A bit of both IMO.

If you're employed then you will receive payment for your contracted hours.

There are a some people on "zero hours" contracts (where no contracted guaranteed hours have given) but that's only in a few countries (the UK is one) and for a small proportion of the workforce.

Laying people off would require the employer to follow the right process which would take a significant period of time.

The reputational damage for a large employer who chose to lay off workers in these circumstances would be considerable and so IMO would likely not happen.
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Huh. Retail employees in an American outfit (excluding executives and some managers) are usually paid by the hour for work performed. You log in and log out at your place of employment, and are paid for those hours only. Layoffs are effortless, employers basically say 'buh-bye' while they hand you your last check. In dog-eat-dog corporate America, I don't think TJX had any obligations to pay anyone for work not performed, and would generally not be expected to, so I find that their voluntary paying employees who are not working very impressive.
 
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Thermal said:
Huh. Retail employees in an American outfit (excluding executives and some managers) are usually paid by the hour for work performed. You log in and log out at your place of employment, and are paid for those hours only. Layoffs are effortless, employers basically say 'buh-bye' while they hand you your last check. In dog-eat-dog corporate America, I don't think TJX had any obligations to pay anyone for work not performed, and would generally not be expected to, so I find that their voluntary paying employees who are not working very impressive.
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Yes, bearing in mind US employment legislation, TJX are behaving above and beyond. EU employment legislation is very different.
 
Hadn't heard anything in the UK media about Puerto Rico for a while. This came up on the BBC website, it doesn't sound great :(

An energy firm is halting work restoring power in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico in a dispute over pay.

Whitefish Energy says payments have been delayed from Puerto Rico's bankrupt power authority.
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No indication in the story about what proportion of people have electricity and water. If this is an A+, I shudder to think what D- performance looks like :mad:


edited to add.....

More information from Slate - no doubt #FakeNews :rolleyes:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_..._devastation_and_neglect_are_puerto_rico.html

he unrelenting electrical issues seem like a cruel farce to residents. Minutes after the governor announced in a press conference Wednesday that electric generation had reached 50 percent, a power outage affected the north of the island, crippling San Juan and forcing the closure of several shopping centers, where those living without power or air conditioning shop and take refuge. On Nov. 8, there was another interruption on that same power line, which curiously was one serviced by the controversial Whitefish Energy Holdings. The Status.pr page states that power generation was up to 46.6 percent of capacity as of Monday. But generation is one thing; distribution is another.
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Those with chronic health conditions who are dying for lack of proper care are not counted as official hurricane deaths, but the island’s forensics institute reported 472 more deaths in September compared with the previous year.
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An estimated 150,000 Puerto Ricans have already left, with an estimated 2,000 arriving every day in central Florida. These American citizens should constitute a formidable voting bloc in future elections.
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w.r.t. to the last, if this continues, I expect the GOP to attempt to restrict the rights of Puerto Ricans to reside in the "Real" US.

edited again to add.....

Here's a link to the Puerto Rico current status:

http://status.pr/

Why isn't this a big news story ? :confused:
 
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The claim of nearly 50% power does not ring true.

Mrs. qg's PT was in today and tells us her son's buildings still do not have power.

I have mentioned before that she had told me he lives 3 miles north of San Juan. I got her to show me exactly where on a map.

This was somewhat deceptive. She was apparently estimating the distance from downtown San Juan. A better description would be residential/commercial suburb just beyond the city limits of SJ, which are a few blocks to the west and to the south. There is no discernible transition. This is not rural, or a slum area or disadvantaged. It is prime res/commercial territory close to the beaches.

To see it on Google Maps, use this link. He has several buildings on Calle Perez, and another a couple of blocks to the west. Please check out the link. Zoom out. Cursor around a bit. Switch to satellite and street view. Get an idea of the proximity of this location to the center of San Juan, and the sort of neighbor hood it is.

The status page linked to above claims they have nearly 50% power restored, nearly 75% phone, and nearly 65% cell. That's for the entire island, by the way.

Her son has none of these yet.

He told her that a main drag some blocks west of them with lots of stores and other businesses got power late last week. None of his buildings either on Calle Perez or Calle Delbrey do. He is still using generators, and having to travel to get within range of a cell tower.

As far as interruptions are concerned, he has yet to have had any power restored to be interrupted.

The numbers we are getting from their officials and our news sources are somewhat suspicious to me.
 
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LTC8K6 said:
The Whitefish story is in the news here in the US. It's confusing since most people remember hearing that the odd contract with Whitefish was cancelled a while ago.
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Yeah, more people seem interested in the whiff of political scandal than in U.S. citizens in month three without power and water.
 
Thermal said:
Yeah, more people seem interested in the whiff of political scandal than in U.S. citizens in month three without power and water.
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It would be a much bigger deal that far fewer citizens if they were real Americans, say rural white people. If it was say the entire state of wyoming(much smaller in population than those without power and water) it would be a serious problem.
 
ponderingturtle said:
It would be a much bigger deal that far fewer citizens if they were real Americans, say rural white people. If it was say the entire state of wyoming(much smaller in population than those without power and water) it would be a serious problem.
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Yes, because they'd have seats in Congress and the Senate, and Electoral College votes.
 
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