Sin Luz
December 15, 2017 11:48 AM   Subscribe

Sin Luz: A multimedia essay on the state of Puerto Rico from the Washington Post. Puerto Rico’s apagón, or “super blackout,” is the longest and largest major power outage in modern U.S. history. Without electricity, there is no reliable source of clean water. School is out, indefinitely. Health care is fraught. Small businesses are faltering. The tasks of daily life are both exhausting and dangerous. There is nothing to do but wait, and no one can say when the lights will come back on.
posted by dinty_moore (13 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
I recommend watching with sound, and to actually watch the videos.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:50 AM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Bush the Lesser's incompetent response to Katrina punctured, at last, the bubble of his popularity.

Trump never has been popular, yet the so-called "liberal media," to say nothing of Congressional Republicans, seem content to let the fact that tens of thousands of American citizens are living in practically nineteenth-century conditions slide.

Shame on them.
posted by Gelatin at 12:07 PM on December 15, 2017 [15 favorites]


A reminder: Puerto Rico is and should be considered a part of the United States. I often hear people in the media and/or in life refer to Puerto Rico as a territory (and yes this is accurate) but I find it's also a way to distance and "other" this place and its people. It's a way to push things away and makes it easy to dismiss and forget. The people there pay U.S. taxes and should get all the help that any other state would receive during a disaster of this magnitude. It's shameful and disgusting that they have still not received the proper help.
posted by Fizz at 12:18 PM on December 15, 2017 [12 favorites]


This is loathsome.
At the end of November six 40 ft containers full of aid donated from the USA were refused entry into Puerto Rico because they were onboard a non US flagged vessel. This is not heresay, I was involved in putting this voyage together but not the Puerto Rican bit.
The fact that the owner of this vessel had donated and paid out of his own pocket for the voyage ex Florida to Puerto Rico and on to other islands in the Caribbean did not matter to the petty minded beaurocrats who deemed that this contravened the Jones Act.
I am happy to say that 200 tons of aid was later discharged in Dominica without problem.
Big ups to Joe Farrell of Resolve Marine and a big fuck you to FEMA et al.
posted by adamvasco at 12:40 PM on December 15, 2017 [19 favorites]


I often hear people in the media and/or in life refer to Puerto Rico as a territory (and yes this is accurate) but I find it's also a way to distance and "other" this place and its people.

Another way you see this is when the media describe Puerto Ricans as "American citizens" instead of the way they would describe residents of New York or Texas.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:47 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I live in Puerto Rico. We have electricity in my town but it is not stable. Same for water. I am very aware that some of my neighbors do not and many towns around me have not had neither lights or water since Irma. I just came in here to say, thank you for keeping us in the news. That is all.
posted by lunachic at 1:09 PM on December 15, 2017 [31 favorites]




Another way you see this is when the media describe Puerto Ricans as "American citizens" instead of the way they would describe residents of New York or Texas.

I hear what you are saying, and wouldn't argue with you, but nearly half of Americans don't know Puerto Ricans are citizens, so it's probably good to remind/inform them when you have the chance.
posted by el io at 2:51 PM on December 15, 2017 [8 favorites]


New tax bill adds 20% tarrif to goods made in Puerto Rico and "exported" to mainland US.

The inital delay in suspending Jones act, plus its quick reinstatement; the delay in allowing SNAP benefits for hot meals, compared to the promptness of those actions in Texas and Florida. This is ethnic cleansing by intentional neglect. I wish I was kidding, i just can't find another explanation for these governmental actions/inactiond
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:19 AM on December 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


There is severe under reporting of what is or more properly what is not happening in Puerto Rico.
What is happening is that people are dying and it appears the nimbers are being lied about.
The official death toll from Hurricane Maria is 64. The data suggests it’s more than 1,000.
At the end of October it was reported that Puerto Rico was allowing funeral homes to burn the bodies of people killed by Hurricane Maria without counting them in the official death toll.

Now Puerto Rico is bracing for another blow: a housing meltdown that could far surpass the worst of the foreclosure crisis that devastated Phoenix, Las Vegas, Southern California and South Florida in the past decade.
posted by adamvasco at 8:07 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]








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