Dear Friends:
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20 and put the island in a very
bad situation: no electricity/power, no cell signal, flooding and a lot of
damages.
Natural disasters
always generate damages and problems to the population. However, today, there
are a lot of resources to prepare cities and populations for the strong weather
phenomena. Technology, engineering and new building codes can help to reduce
the impact of hurricanes and tornadoes.
Did the Puerto Rico authorities and utility companies prepare
the island for the 2017 hurricane season?
It is important to
remark that in the cases of natural disasters, authorities and service
companies cannot put all the blame in the power of the wind, the rain and the
waves. They have also responsibilities for the level of damages the population
suffers.
Puerto Rico receives federal assistance from the federal
government as is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Where the money goes? Does it make
investment in infrastructure and new urbanizations?
The modern
techniques of engineering and new materials give the possibilities to build
good water draining systems to avoid flooding after any kind of storm. Of
course, in old cities is difficult to plan and build new pipelines that move
the water of the rain away from the areas where people live. But it is not
impossible. (It is not a valid excuse.)
In the construction
sector, in different cities of the United States and other countries, the municipalities had implemented new building
codes to prevent roofs and windows problems in the houses and avoid damages due
to the fall of trees.
The roofs in bad
conditions have to be repair before the hurricane season start and the trees
that very close to the houses have to be cut if they can fall over the roofs or
damage the walls of the houses.
It was interesting
to observe that in Miami Dade County, the tornadoes generated by Hurricane Irma
didn’t damage the roofs in good conditions. A series of tours across different
neighborhoods before and after the storm gave the possibility to observe that
the only roofs that suffered damages were in bad conditions before the 2017
hurricane season started.
Other serious
problem during the wind storms is the distribution of the electricity when the
cities are full of cables through the air that cross from a side of the street
to the other and with splices house by house.
Today, in small
towns of the Rocky
Mountains where the
snow storms are intense and frequent, all the wires of power,
telecommunications and cable go underground. In these places, the blizzards
don’t isolate people because everybody continues receiving electricity, phone
and TV signs despite streets and roofs covered by thick snow layers.
Any tropical storm
cuts aerial cables. For this reason, it is more than necessary that the
utilities - electricity, cable, Internet and phone – go through underground
systems. Today, technology and engineering make possible these urban
investments.
From long time ago, Puerto Rico didn’t have reputation of good management of
the finances and public services, but the preparation for a hurricane season is
more than a priority in the Caribbean
islands.
Hurricane Maria gave
a serious lesson to the island, its government, its service providers and its
population. The preparation for a hurricane is not only to store gasoline and
food and to buy power generators. It is necessary to inspect the roofs, the
electrical grids, cut trees in bad shape and make the testing all the services
the population needs in emergency moments.
The territory government
and its people didn’t make the right effort. Now, they are suffering the
consequences. It is painful, but it is the payment of a non-sufficient
preparation for natural disasters.
Puerto
Rico is part of the
United
States. It had the possibility to access to advanced technology, and hire
excellent planners of urban areas, but Puerto Ricans didn’t put enough effort
to avoid the current drama. We have to hope the Maria lesson forces these
people to be more Americans and less Puerto Ricans.
Domingo A. Trassens
Email: d.a.trassens@gmail.com
WORLD RETHINK
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started in 2014 and 7900 in the previous JC.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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11 Recommendations
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4 Recommendations
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SOURCES:
1) External Sources:
Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post and a series of
newspapers from Germany, U.K., France, Canada and Japan.
2) Own Sources: My
own research for previous publishing projects like TTT of Comlab Corp and
others.
Website: http://world-rethink.blogspot.com/
