Hurricanes Jose, Katia, and Maria

[candygirl200413]

@GrumpyGran That is me currently with basically everything! Unless I can't avoid it either.

Also just a reminder to everyone: Eff FEMA and everyone in this administration who can't take any type of criticism.

FEMA takes down data on Puerto Rico access to water and electricity: report

Quote

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) website has removed key statistics on Puerto Rico's recovery from Hurricane Maria from its website, according to The Washington Post.

FEMA removed information on Puerto Rico's access to clean drinking water and electricity, both of which were severely crippled by the storm. On Wednesday, the site reported that half of the U.S. territory's residents had access to clean drinking water and 5 percent had power, according to the Post. 

But on Thursday, that information was missing from the website. 

Up-to-date reports on the availability of water and power on the island can now be found on a site run by the Puerto Rico governor's office, which is entirely in Spanish, a FEMA spokesman told the Post. They did not give a reason for the removal of the statistics from the agency's website. 

The official federal site still shows other vital statistics on Puerto Rico, such as the roughly 65 percent of grocery stores that are open, along with 64 percent of its wastewater treatment facilities. All of the island's ports and airports are now fully operational as well.  

While FEMA says that 92 percent of hospitals and 96 percent of dialysis centers on the island are now open, many hospitals are still running on emergency power, crippling air conditioning systems in the facilities and imperiling hospital patients to the island's tropical heat. 

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló raised the official death toll from the hurricane to 34 on Wednesday, and some experts predict the toll will rise even more as the federal government continues to help the island regain access to vital resources. 

 

Also it just makes me mad how they just refuse to care about people's lives.

[Destiny]

That website, if anyone wants to know, is http://status.pr. It’s still pretty easy to read even in Spanish cos they put on pictures.

[GrumpyGran]

11 hours ago, Destiny said:

That website, if anyone wants to know, is http://status.pr. It’s still pretty easy to read even in Spanish cos they put on pictures.

Saw this stuff in the paper this morning. No bad news will be allowed. Oh, you know you can also get that information from their briefings.  Like I'm going to believe anything that comes out of Sarah Hack-up-a-lie Sanders' mouth. No thanks, I'll get my information from my two year old grandson.

[Destiny]

Hahah, that site now includes an English version where it didn't before. Well played Rosello, well fucking played. <3

 

[Cartmann99]

Bad news for the Gulf Coast:

 

[RosyDaisy]

Nate has strengthened. Max winds 85 mph. Pressure 986 mb.

[GreyhoundFan]

Understatement of the year: "President Trump has no idea what’s happening in Puerto Rico"

Spoiler

Extraordinary crises are the acid test of presidential leadership.

As I learned while managing the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, a president’s personal engagement is the indispensable variable in ensuring a fully engaged federal crisis response. In the face of unusually complex and devastating emergencies, the federal government must transcend business-as-usual, mounting the sort of massive whole-of-government effort that only the president can fully mobilize. What the nation has witnessed in Puerto Rico over the past two weeks sadly demonstrates the inverse: the shortfalls that emerge when a president leaves a major federal disaster response on autopilot.

President Trump’s tactless comments during his visit to San Juan this week provide a good microcosm of the larger issue. Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of the crisis; described his administration’s response as “incredible” and “unbelievable”; praised the then-official death toll of 16 as something Puerto Ricans “can be very proud of”; told disaster survivors at a distribution site “you don’t need” the flashlights he was handing to them; and claimed Puerto Rico had not experienced a “real catastrophe, like Hurricane Katrina.” Those remarks followed other comments from Trump and his senior advisers who have characterized the federal response as “amazing,” and “a good news story.”

As tone-deaf as Trump’s self-congratulations were, they reflect a much deeper problem than just a flawed communications strategy. The president’s remarks in Puerto Rico were factually wrong in ways that raise serious questions about whether he grasps the depth of the crisis — and whether he truly has a handle on the federal response.

Consider the death toll. There have been multiple public reports that the official count (now at least 34) remains artificially low due to the breakdowns of communications and public administration on the island. The Center for Investigative Journalism in San Juan has been calling hospitals to inquire about mortality figures in areas they serve, and the nonprofit news organization estimates dozens and perhaps hundreds more deaths have occurred but not yet been documented. Trump’s advisers, who include people with considerable disaster response experience, surely understand the death toll will rise. Yet the president seemed unaware.

He seemed equally unaware that, his flashlights comment notwithstanding, 93 percent of the island remains without power. He appeared puzzled by the concept of water purification. While Katrina did have a higher death toll than the initial count from Maria, the devastation in Puerto Rico is affecting a population seven times that of pre-storm New Orleans and looks likely to take far longer to address. It is a “real” catastrophe, indeed.

There is no way to generously spin the president’s comments; he appears to have a fundamentally incorrect understanding of the seriousness of this crisis. Whether he is getting poor information or simply ignoring his briefings, this is a critical handicap to the federal response effort.

In a more standard disaster event, that might not be such a big deal. The federal government has seasoned and capable emergency managers who can, in the face of a typical disaster, mount an effective response even without close presidential involvement. The federal responses to Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida, for example, were robust and effective. However, Hurricane Maria — like Katrina — has spawned a disaster that is anything but typical.

Puerto Rico’s crisis poses major difficulties for disaster responders. The territory’s fragile infrastructure was highly vulnerable and suffered widespread damage. The logistical challenges of operating in an island setting make pre-storm evacuation impossible and slow down post-storm relief. Maria struck at a time when the Federal Emergency Management Agency is uniquely overstretched, having been on a round-the-clock operational tempo since Harvey struck Texas a month and a half ago. The response strains FEMA’s normal operating model, which is premised on capable state and local disaster authorities leading most of the initial front-line response. FEMA has lacked that in Puerto Rico, in part because so many local officials were themselves caught in the disaster. So federal officials have instead had to play much more of a lead role, something FEMA is not accustomed to doing.

Situations like this, when the normal federal tools are overmatched by the complexity of the crisis, require attentive, disciplined and creative presidential leadership. Yet in the critical early days of the response, Trump focused his attention elsewhere. He tweeted repeatedly about the NFL immediately after the storm, yet did not hold a high-level meeting on the Puerto Rico response until six days after Maria made landfall. In the absence of a sense of urgency from the White House, what emerged from his administration has been a comparatively modest federal response.

Consider the numbers. The level of personnel deployed was initially low, and at 14,000 still remains lower than the levels deployed for Harvey (31,000) or Irma (40,000) despite considerably more comprehensive damage. The military deployment has been similarly restrained. Fewer air assets were initially deployed to Puerto Rico — nine helicopters and airplanes — than the 11 the United States deployed to the 2016 Hurricane Matthew response in Haiti or the 66 deployed after the 2013 super-typhoon in the Philippines. Even with additional deployments finally bringing air assets to around 80 in the coming days, the Defense Department’s level of engagement remains dramatically smaller than the 22,000 troops, 33 ships and 300 aircraft deployed to support the 2010 Haiti earthquake response.

The size and ambition of this federal deployment in turn directly shapes what is possible. One telling example: As the response enters its third week, road blockages and trucking shortfalls continue to impede last-mile distribution from reaching all of the island. Many badly affected areas in the interior are yet to be reached with lifesaving aid deliveries.

There is no reason this should be such an obstacle. In the international disaster responses I led in places like Haiti, the Philippines and Nepal, the U.S. government circumvented overland delivery blockages during the initial phase by relying on military airlifts. In the Philippines after the 2013 typhoon, for example, the Defense Department conducted 1,300 air deliveries of aid supplies to 450 hard-to-reach sites in the first few weeks. In Puerto Rico, the anemic early deployment of military air assets did not enable a similarly robust operation.

This is why presidential engagement is such a crucial variable. On every major operation I worked as USAID’s disaster response chief, close attention from former president Barack Obama on down helped ensure rapid mobilization and tightly choreographed federal execution. The White House pressed my team to go big and do more, articulating a clear and ambitious vision for U.S. engagement — then backing us up to make sure we got the resources we needed. Nowhere was this more important than with the Ebola outbreak, another crisis where federal tools were initially overmatched amid a raft of simultaneous disasters. Rather than accept the government was doing all it reasonably could, Obama pressed us to do the unreasonable — to be creative, to stretch ourselves, to pull on resources we would not normally have access to. His engagement pushed my team, and the rest of the federal system, to step up in unorthodox ways. Without that hands-on leadership, we would not have succeeded.

Trump’s tweets and offhand comments are not just empty rhetoric; they are signals to the federal workforce on how to prioritize across competing crises. The president’s early assertions the response was on track were a signal to maintain course, rather than go all-out to amplify federal engagement. Comments about high recovery costs in Puerto Rico discourage a frank conversation on what resources are needed. The management culture the president fosters determines whether his subordinates will give him straight assessments of the situation, or spin things to look rosier than they are. A White House culture that produces a “dear leader” Cabinet meeting makes it actively difficult for government officials to tell the president the response is off course, or his inflammatory public comments are hindering their efforts.

The sluggish ramp-up of federal engagement does finally appear to be accelerating, as FEMA’s deployment expands and additional military assets arrive on the scene. The arrival of international relief organizations like Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam (who jumped in to offset federal shortfalls) is providing a helpful complement to federal efforts. Of course, the people of Puerto Rico are working tirelessly to do everything they can within their own communities. Things will, eventually get on track.

But an inescapable takeaway of the past few weeks is how little Trump seems to recognize or care that his own handling of the situation hampered the response. This should worry every American. For Puerto Rico is unlikely to be the only — or the worst — major crisis this president will face.

 

[GrumpyGran]

14 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Understatement of the year: "President Trump has no idea what’s happening in Puerto Rico"

  Reveal hidden contents

Extraordinary crises are the acid test of presidential leadership.

As I learned while managing the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, a president’s personal engagement is the indispensable variable in ensuring a fully engaged federal crisis response. In the face of unusually complex and devastating emergencies, the federal government must transcend business-as-usual, mounting the sort of massive whole-of-government effort that only the president can fully mobilize. What the nation has witnessed in Puerto Rico over the past two weeks sadly demonstrates the inverse: the shortfalls that emerge when a president leaves a major federal disaster response on autopilot.

President Trump’s tactless comments during his visit to San Juan this week provide a good microcosm of the larger issue. Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of the crisis; described his administration’s response as “incredible” and “unbelievable”; praised the then-official death toll of 16 as something Puerto Ricans “can be very proud of”; told disaster survivors at a distribution site “you don’t need” the flashlights he was handing to them; and claimed Puerto Rico had not experienced a “real catastrophe, like Hurricane Katrina.” Those remarks followed other comments from Trump and his senior advisers who have characterized the federal response as “amazing,” and “a good news story.”

As tone-deaf as Trump’s self-congratulations were, they reflect a much deeper problem than just a flawed communications strategy. The president’s remarks in Puerto Rico were factually wrong in ways that raise serious questions about whether he grasps the depth of the crisis — and whether he truly has a handle on the federal response.

Consider the death toll. There have been multiple public reports that the official count (now at least 34) remains artificially low due to the breakdowns of communications and public administration on the island. The Center for Investigative Journalism in San Juan has been calling hospitals to inquire about mortality figures in areas they serve, and the nonprofit news organization estimates dozens and perhaps hundreds more deaths have occurred but not yet been documented. Trump’s advisers, who include people with considerable disaster response experience, surely understand the death toll will rise. Yet the president seemed unaware.

He seemed equally unaware that, his flashlights comment notwithstanding, 93 percent of the island remains without power. He appeared puzzled by the concept of water purification. While Katrina did have a higher death toll than the initial count from Maria, the devastation in Puerto Rico is affecting a population seven times that of pre-storm New Orleans and looks likely to take far longer to address. It is a “real” catastrophe, indeed.

There is no way to generously spin the president’s comments; he appears to have a fundamentally incorrect understanding of the seriousness of this crisis. Whether he is getting poor information or simply ignoring his briefings, this is a critical handicap to the federal response effort.

In a more standard disaster event, that might not be such a big deal. The federal government has seasoned and capable emergency managers who can, in the face of a typical disaster, mount an effective response even without close presidential involvement. The federal responses to Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida, for example, were robust and effective. However, Hurricane Maria — like Katrina — has spawned a disaster that is anything but typical.

Puerto Rico’s crisis poses major difficulties for disaster responders. The territory’s fragile infrastructure was highly vulnerable and suffered widespread damage. The logistical challenges of operating in an island setting make pre-storm evacuation impossible and slow down post-storm relief. Maria struck at a time when the Federal Emergency Management Agency is uniquely overstretched, having been on a round-the-clock operational tempo since Harvey struck Texas a month and a half ago. The response strains FEMA’s normal operating model, which is premised on capable state and local disaster authorities leading most of the initial front-line response. FEMA has lacked that in Puerto Rico, in part because so many local officials were themselves caught in the disaster. So federal officials have instead had to play much more of a lead role, something FEMA is not accustomed to doing.

Situations like this, when the normal federal tools are overmatched by the complexity of the crisis, require attentive, disciplined and creative presidential leadership. Yet in the critical early days of the response, Trump focused his attention elsewhere. He tweeted repeatedly about the NFL immediately after the storm, yet did not hold a high-level meeting on the Puerto Rico response until six days after Maria made landfall. In the absence of a sense of urgency from the White House, what emerged from his administration has been a comparatively modest federal response.

Consider the numbers. The level of personnel deployed was initially low, and at 14,000 still remains lower than the levels deployed for Harvey (31,000) or Irma (40,000) despite considerably more comprehensive damage. The military deployment has been similarly restrained. Fewer air assets were initially deployed to Puerto Rico — nine helicopters and airplanes — than the 11 the United States deployed to the 2016 Hurricane Matthew response in Haiti or the 66 deployed after the 2013 super-typhoon in the Philippines. Even with additional deployments finally bringing air assets to around 80 in the coming days, the Defense Department’s level of engagement remains dramatically smaller than the 22,000 troops, 33 ships and 300 aircraft deployed to support the 2010 Haiti earthquake response.

The size and ambition of this federal deployment in turn directly shapes what is possible. One telling example: As the response enters its third week, road blockages and trucking shortfalls continue to impede last-mile distribution from reaching all of the island. Many badly affected areas in the interior are yet to be reached with lifesaving aid deliveries.

There is no reason this should be such an obstacle. In the international disaster responses I led in places like Haiti, the Philippines and Nepal, the U.S. government circumvented overland delivery blockages during the initial phase by relying on military airlifts. In the Philippines after the 2013 typhoon, for example, the Defense Department conducted 1,300 air deliveries of aid supplies to 450 hard-to-reach sites in the first few weeks. In Puerto Rico, the anemic early deployment of military air assets did not enable a similarly robust operation.

This is why presidential engagement is such a crucial variable. On every major operation I worked as USAID’s disaster response chief, close attention from former president Barack Obama on down helped ensure rapid mobilization and tightly choreographed federal execution. The White House pressed my team to go big and do more, articulating a clear and ambitious vision for U.S. engagement — then backing us up to make sure we got the resources we needed. Nowhere was this more important than with the Ebola outbreak, another crisis where federal tools were initially overmatched amid a raft of simultaneous disasters. Rather than accept the government was doing all it reasonably could, Obama pressed us to do the unreasonable — to be creative, to stretch ourselves, to pull on resources we would not normally have access to. His engagement pushed my team, and the rest of the federal system, to step up in unorthodox ways. Without that hands-on leadership, we would not have succeeded.

Trump’s tweets and offhand comments are not just empty rhetoric; they are signals to the federal workforce on how to prioritize across competing crises. The president’s early assertions the response was on track were a signal to maintain course, rather than go all-out to amplify federal engagement. Comments about high recovery costs in Puerto Rico discourage a frank conversation on what resources are needed. The management culture the president fosters determines whether his subordinates will give him straight assessments of the situation, or spin things to look rosier than they are. A White House culture that produces a “dear leader” Cabinet meeting makes it actively difficult for government officials to tell the president the response is off course, or his inflammatory public comments are hindering their efforts.

The sluggish ramp-up of federal engagement does finally appear to be accelerating, as FEMA’s deployment expands and additional military assets arrive on the scene. The arrival of international relief organizations like Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam (who jumped in to offset federal shortfalls) is providing a helpful complement to federal efforts. Of course, the people of Puerto Rico are working tirelessly to do everything they can within their own communities. Things will, eventually get on track.

But an inescapable takeaway of the past few weeks is how little Trump seems to recognize or care that his own handling of the situation hampered the response. This should worry every American. For Puerto Rico is unlikely to be the only — or the worst — major crisis this president will face.

 

He has a fundamentally incorrect understanding of everything. And I'm going with ignoring his briefings. He literally believes that he knows more than his experts. He just needs them to 'remind' him of things.

It will be interesting to see how he handles the aftermath of Nate if the storm continues at this strength, and at this point it's there. I would say he doesn't even know where Mississippi is, but remember he has those partner hotels there. Of course, New Orleans is on its own.

[GreyhoundFan]

I thought this was an interesting article: "A survivalist filled his massive basement with food — then decided Puerto Ricans needed it more"

Spoiler

Joseph Badame was a lonely man, still grieving his wife’s death.

And then he lost everything.

Buried in debt because of eight years of medical bills and lost income, he could not prevent banks from foreclosing on his custom-built New Jersey home — an 8,500-square-foot fortress with separate living quarters for multiple families, plus a massive basement equipped with bunk beds, propane- and kerosene-powered refrigerators, laundry facilities and showers.

The basement also included a fallout shelter.

Badame and his wife, Phyliss, were survivalists who stocked up on everything: dry food, generators, fuel, survival books, thousands of rolls of toilet paper — all to keep them alive in the event of a disaster or some other crisis.

But Phyliss, who came up with the idea of prepping, is now gone. Other family members never really supported the endeavor, and there aren’t many of them left to help or save anyway.

And Badame, the 74-year-old widower, is being evicted from the house in Medford, N.J.

Forty-five years of prepping seemed to have been for nothing, he said.

That changed last month, when he met a couple who run a Puerto Rican food truck in Medford.

Victoria and Anthony Barber were everything Joseph Badame was not anymore — young, energetic and full of life.

They met during an estate sale of Badame’s belongings. The company facilitating it had asked the Barbers to provide food for prospective buyers.

Badame learned that Victoria is from Puerto Rico, and that Hurricane Maria had left some of her relatives without food.

So he told her about the food supply in his basement — and said she could have all of it.

“I can’t put into words just how much food there was,” she said. “It was enough to feed a town.”

In the basement were 80 barrels, each weighing 360 pounds.

They were filled with bags of rice, flour, sugar, dried beans, pancake and chocolate mixes, seeds and lots of other things that do not spoil and are easy to prepare.

The food that the Badames had intended to eat in case of crisis will now feed starving people in two Puerto Rican towns devastated by Hurricane Maria.

“Those people are starving and they have nothing,” he said. “I just can’t sit by.”

Half of those barrels, along with pallets of bottled water and dried milk, will be flown to San Juan on Friday, Barber said.

Private trucks will then deliver the goods to her home town, Arecibo, a coastal city 45 miles west of San Juan.

The food will feed dozens of families.

The rest of the supplies are still in Badame’s basement, but the Barbers eventually plan to deliver them to another part of Puerto Rico, to feed even more families.

Badame does not consider himself a doomsday prepper.

“I think that’s a little severe,” he told The Washington Post. “I’d say we’re more like Boy Scouts. Being prepared.”

He had spent years preparing for a massive economic crisis coupled with war or violence, he said — but not a biblical or apocalyptic scenario.

He and Phyliss became survivalists in the 1970s, when they returned to New Jersey after spending two years with the Peace Corps in Tunisia. Violent race riots engulfed Camden in 1969.

More riots erupted two years later, following the beating and death of a Puerto Rican motorist at the hands of two white police officers. Looting and arson destroyed downtown Camden; many residents, most of them white, moved elsewhere.

“Phyliss decided that we needed to prepare,” Badame said.

In 1973, they moved from Pennsauken Township to Medford, where Badame began building their giant house.

He and Phyliss tried to convince relatives and friends that bad times were coming and made a list of 100 people they would welcome into their fortress when bad times hit.

Many of them laughed at the endeavor. Still, Badame, an architectural engineer, designed the house to be big enough for all of them and stocked up. Over the years, Badame estimates that he and Phyliss spent $1 million on their effort.

The massive economic crisis never struck, at least not on the scale he and Phyliss had anticipated.

But, he said, it’s only a matter of time.

The Badames were prepared to survive a national or international crisis.

But then a personal one struck: In 2005, Phyliss had a massive stroke that left her paralyzed. She died after another stroke in 2013, Joseph said.

He had quit his job and spent years taking care of his wife — and he was broke. He paid bills with credit cards and defaulted on his mortgage and tax payments, he said.

Last month, he received his eviction notice.

“I was devastated,” he said. “There was no reason for me to continue the survival center. I just didn’t have a purpose in life.”

Then, he met Victoria Barber.

Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, a Wednesday.

The following day, ahead of the estate sale, Badame met the Barbers.

At the time, he had not been able to figure out what to do with all the supplies he had in his basement. Local food banks wanted them, but they had no means of transporting the massive barrels. Badame was dreading that his food reserves, which were not included in the estate sale, would just be thrown away.

“I don’t know what would’ve happened to me if that final insult was placed upon me,” he said.

Barber had just started a donation drive to help feed more than 50 family members in Puerto Rico.

Badame was the first to donate; he gave $100.

Then he showed her his basement.

She expected to see a small pantry and said she would have been grateful for a case of beans.

Instead, she saw stacks of barrels.

Barber and her husband spent the next week raising money to transport the barrels. Badame helped, too, and wore a red T-shirt: “#PRSTRONG” it said, with a heart below it.

Members of the local police department and a high school soccer team helped carry the supplies out of the basement, and the barrels were repacked so that each contained a variety of dried goods.

By Wednesday, 40 of Badame’s barrels were on wooden pallets, covered in plastic wrap, waiting to be delivered to Puerto Rico on a Delta Air Lines flight out of Newark. Barber said they plan to deliver the remaining 40 barrels by ship.

“This is lifesaving,” she said. “What Joe has done for me, I could never pay back. I told him that. He prepared for one group of people, but he ended up helping an entire town.”

Badame said it was his own life that was saved.

“I’m tired, old, depressed, feeling like I’m a failure regarding the survival thing,” he said. Then Barber “came along, gave me a shot of adrenaline. I couldn’t believe it.”

Badame and Barber each gained something they didn’t have.

He doesn’t have children; her own father died when she was young.

“I gained a dad out of all this,” she said.

Badame now lives in a 300-square-foot trailer, parked in Barber’s front yard.

I'm glad his supplies will help people who are in such desperate need.

[apple1]

I just read that the temporary 10-day extension of the Jones Act has expired without further extension.

[Curious]

ok folks!

I have moved the fire related posts to their own thread.  Please continue that discussion here: 

Thanks!

[Destiny]

ok folks!
I have moved the fire related posts to their own thread.  Please continue that discussion here: 
Thanks!

Thanks C. I tried but couldn’t figure out how on mobile.

[GreyhoundFan]

No surprise: "Trump’s Puerto Rico video tells positive story but leaves a lot on cutting-room floor"

Spoiler

A few minutes into a video about Puerto Rico relief efforts that President Trump tweeted out this week is a short clip about U.S. Forest Service workers clearing fallen trees off a road in the rural interior.

Over the sound of chain saws, the Forest Service’s fire chief explains how this will allow for the easier distribution of food, medical supplies and other aid. But his full comments are cut off by a shift to footage of a ship used as a hospital.

Had the road-clearing clip continued for 15 seconds, the president’s millions of Twitter followers would have heard the fire chief praise the people of Puerto Rico for successfully clearing many roads before the federal government arrived. The sentiment seems contrary to the president’s repeated criticism of local efforts and his claim in the tweet accompanying the video: “Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work!”

In the full clip, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency posted on its Twitter account Saturday, Jaime Gamboa says: “So the citizens of Puerto Rico were doing an outstanding job coming out and clearing roads to help get the aid that’s needed. Because that’s occurring, we’re bringing our folks in and they’re just making the roads wider, more usable.”

The 8-minute-48-second video provides the kind of narrow, positive view of relief efforts in Puerto Rico that the president has been trying to convey amid the humanitarian crisis there — a montage of stacks of bottled water, helicopters moving concrete slabs and supplies, boats carrying medical items and trucks hauling diesel. There are many more federal workers and military members featured than Puerto Ricans in need of aid, and there is no mention of the fact that 84 percent of the island is still without power and more than one-third of residents do not have access to clean drinking water. The last 81 seconds are devoted to documenting Trump’s four-hour visit to the island last week.

The selectively edited compilation shows the extent to which Trump and his administration are portraying the federal government’s handling of the disaster in Puerto Rico in the best possible light, despite the enduring power, water and health problems there nearly three weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the video and its formation.

During Trump’s trip on Oct. 3, he visited San Juan and a nearby municipality that were not as heavily hit as other parts of the island. Trump characterized the territory as being in full recovery mode, told locals they no longer needed flashlights, made a disgusted face when told how water purification works, playfully tossed paper-towel rolls to residents as if they were basketballs and noted that Puerto Rico’s death toll was much lower than that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After his trip, statistics about access to power and drinking water in Puerto Rico disappeared from FEMA’s main information page about Hurricane Maria but were restored following a Washington Post report.

Trump’s tweet of the video landed at 7:37 p.m. Sunday, when those close to Trump say he had grown increasingly frustrated that his administration was being criticized, not praised, for its handling of Hurricane Maria. Earlier in the day, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, attacked by Trump for earlier criticism, tweeted that power had collapsed in a San Juan hospital and the federal government did “NOTHING!”

“Increasingly painful to undestand the american people want to help and US Gov does not want to help. WE NEED WATER!” she repeatedly tweeted early Sunday.

The video tweeted by Trump hours later opened with the message: “What the fake news media will not show you in Puerto Rico . . .”

The production pulls together a hodgepodge of videos from a variety of sources, mostly within the government but also including a charity and a media outlet. All the footage is aimed at an upbeat message.

Some of the footage had previously been highlighted by the White House’s social media operation, such as a short news-style package of the Coast Guard delivering medicine to an island off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast on Oct. 4. The video shows roads that appear easily traveled — along with a woman in shorts and a tank top who hugs a Coast Guard member and profusely thanks him and others for bringing insulin and other medication. Trump’s director of social media, Daniel Scavino Jr., tweeted it Sunday afternoon with the message, “Amazing stories like this, all over Puerto Rico.”

There is a Pentagon video about relief efforts, narrated by white and purple text, that was posted Friday on Twitter. The video, produced by DOD News Now, features troops carrying and delivering aid, more helicopters, relief being distributed in a municipality east of San Juan, heavy equipment clearing brush, and footage of the Puerto Rican governor.

Other parts are not clearly labeled. There is footage of two trucks hauling supplies near an airplane hangar like the one Trump visited last week, although it’s unclear when and where the clip was made, or who made the clip, which is repeated later in the video.

One clip features work by the American Red Cross, which is not a part of the federal government. It shows the charity’s effort to bring wireless Internet to Ponce, a major city along Puerto Rico’s southern coast.

“Thank you to the Red Cross for connecting me with my whole family,” a young woman says in the video, which was posted on the Red Cross’s Twitter account last Wednesday.

Many of the clips are missing context. Unlabeled footage of workers emptying fuel out of a tanker truck, for example, was filmed on Sept. 29 as Puerto Rican National Guard members delivered diesel to hospitals relying on generator power. Another series of clips shows Ohio National Guard members passing bottled water and loading a pallet onto a military cargo plan; the footage, posted Oct. 3 on Twitter, was shot as the troops were headed to Puerto Rico and not yet on the island, as might be assumed from the rest of the video.

There is also footage of the Coast Guard delivering supplies to a residence for the elderly in Ponce and members of the military delivering food and water to Utuado, the same inner-island municipality where forest workers were working to clear the road. And there is a shot of a helicopter heavy-lift operation filmed by the Independent, a British publication, and published on Oct. 4 before being tweeted out by the Pentagon two days later.

[FEMA administrator: Puerto Rico’s politics, lack of unity, hindering hurricane response]

The final part of the video is an 81-second documentary that the White House released following Trump’s visit last Tuesday. The quality is higher than the rest of the production, and there is a soaring soundtrack and footage taken from various angles.

The president and first lady step off Air Force One waving. Trump chats with some of those at the airport as a horde of reporters records his every move. There is brief footage of fallen trees in San Juan and Trump meeting with local officials in an Air National Guard hangar. Trump arrives on the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Puerto Rico in a helicopter and salutes members of the military. Then the video jolts back in time to Trump touring a neighborhood just outside San Juan — which was easily reached by motorcade and did not require helicopter travel — and visiting an evangelical church.

Calvary Chapel is the largest English-speaking church on the island, and many of its members are in the military, federal workers or transplants from the mainland. Jason Dennett, the church’s pastor, said a Secret Service agent who used to live in Puerto Rico suggested Trump visit the church about a week before his visit. The day that Trump visited, Dennett said, there were about 150 locals at the church, although many seemed more interested in getting a photo with Trump than obtaining canned food or paper towels.

On the video, the footage goes into slow-motion as Trump hands a can of chicken into the crowd at the church. The camera also zooms in on pro-Trump signs in the church, including one that reads “Let’s Make Puerto Rico Great Again,” a play on the president’s campaign slogan.

At the end, it’s back to the helicopter ride to the Kearsarge, into a briefing with members of the military and on to the deck, where Trump shook hands with those aboard.

The video then fades to black, and a white icon of the White House pops onto the screen.

I can't watch the video or I'll became even more angry.

[GrumpyGran]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

No surprise: "Trump’s Puerto Rico video tells positive story but leaves a lot on cutting-room floor"

  Reveal hidden contents

A few minutes into a video about Puerto Rico relief efforts that President Trump tweeted out this week is a short clip about U.S. Forest Service workers clearing fallen trees off a road in the rural interior.

Over the sound of chain saws, the Forest Service’s fire chief explains how this will allow for the easier distribution of food, medical supplies and other aid. But his full comments are cut off by a shift to footage of a ship used as a hospital.

Had the road-clearing clip continued for 15 seconds, the president’s millions of Twitter followers would have heard the fire chief praise the people of Puerto Rico for successfully clearing many roads before the federal government arrived. The sentiment seems contrary to the president’s repeated criticism of local efforts and his claim in the tweet accompanying the video: “Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work!”

In the full clip, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency posted on its Twitter account Saturday, Jaime Gamboa says: “So the citizens of Puerto Rico were doing an outstanding job coming out and clearing roads to help get the aid that’s needed. Because that’s occurring, we’re bringing our folks in and they’re just making the roads wider, more usable.”

The 8-minute-48-second video provides the kind of narrow, positive view of relief efforts in Puerto Rico that the president has been trying to convey amid the humanitarian crisis there — a montage of stacks of bottled water, helicopters moving concrete slabs and supplies, boats carrying medical items and trucks hauling diesel. There are many more federal workers and military members featured than Puerto Ricans in need of aid, and there is no mention of the fact that 84 percent of the island is still without power and more than one-third of residents do not have access to clean drinking water. The last 81 seconds are devoted to documenting Trump’s four-hour visit to the island last week.

The selectively edited compilation shows the extent to which Trump and his administration are portraying the federal government’s handling of the disaster in Puerto Rico in the best possible light, despite the enduring power, water and health problems there nearly three weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the video and its formation.

During Trump’s trip on Oct. 3, he visited San Juan and a nearby municipality that were not as heavily hit as other parts of the island. Trump characterized the territory as being in full recovery mode, told locals they no longer needed flashlights, made a disgusted face when told how water purification works, playfully tossed paper-towel rolls to residents as if they were basketballs and noted that Puerto Rico’s death toll was much lower than that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After his trip, statistics about access to power and drinking water in Puerto Rico disappeared from FEMA’s main information page about Hurricane Maria but were restored following a Washington Post report.

Trump’s tweet of the video landed at 7:37 p.m. Sunday, when those close to Trump say he had grown increasingly frustrated that his administration was being criticized, not praised, for its handling of Hurricane Maria. Earlier in the day, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, attacked by Trump for earlier criticism, tweeted that power had collapsed in a San Juan hospital and the federal government did “NOTHING!”

“Increasingly painful to undestand the american people want to help and US Gov does not want to help. WE NEED WATER!” she repeatedly tweeted early Sunday.

The video tweeted by Trump hours later opened with the message: “What the fake news media will not show you in Puerto Rico . . .”

The production pulls together a hodgepodge of videos from a variety of sources, mostly within the government but also including a charity and a media outlet. All the footage is aimed at an upbeat message.

Some of the footage had previously been highlighted by the White House’s social media operation, such as a short news-style package of the Coast Guard delivering medicine to an island off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast on Oct. 4. The video shows roads that appear easily traveled — along with a woman in shorts and a tank top who hugs a Coast Guard member and profusely thanks him and others for bringing insulin and other medication. Trump’s director of social media, Daniel Scavino Jr., tweeted it Sunday afternoon with the message, “Amazing stories like this, all over Puerto Rico.”

There is a Pentagon video about relief efforts, narrated by white and purple text, that was posted Friday on Twitter. The video, produced by DOD News Now, features troops carrying and delivering aid, more helicopters, relief being distributed in a municipality east of San Juan, heavy equipment clearing brush, and footage of the Puerto Rican governor.

Other parts are not clearly labeled. There is footage of two trucks hauling supplies near an airplane hangar like the one Trump visited last week, although it’s unclear when and where the clip was made, or who made the clip, which is repeated later in the video.

One clip features work by the American Red Cross, which is not a part of the federal government. It shows the charity’s effort to bring wireless Internet to Ponce, a major city along Puerto Rico’s southern coast.

“Thank you to the Red Cross for connecting me with my whole family,” a young woman says in the video, which was posted on the Red Cross’s Twitter account last Wednesday.

Many of the clips are missing context. Unlabeled footage of workers emptying fuel out of a tanker truck, for example, was filmed on Sept. 29 as Puerto Rican National Guard members delivered diesel to hospitals relying on generator power. Another series of clips shows Ohio National Guard members passing bottled water and loading a pallet onto a military cargo plan; the footage, posted Oct. 3 on Twitter, was shot as the troops were headed to Puerto Rico and not yet on the island, as might be assumed from the rest of the video.

There is also footage of the Coast Guard delivering supplies to a residence for the elderly in Ponce and members of the military delivering food and water to Utuado, the same inner-island municipality where forest workers were working to clear the road. And there is a shot of a helicopter heavy-lift operation filmed by the Independent, a British publication, and published on Oct. 4 before being tweeted out by the Pentagon two days later.

[FEMA administrator: Puerto Rico’s politics, lack of unity, hindering hurricane response]

The final part of the video is an 81-second documentary that the White House released following Trump’s visit last Tuesday. The quality is higher than the rest of the production, and there is a soaring soundtrack and footage taken from various angles.

The president and first lady step off Air Force One waving. Trump chats with some of those at the airport as a horde of reporters records his every move. There is brief footage of fallen trees in San Juan and Trump meeting with local officials in an Air National Guard hangar. Trump arrives on the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Puerto Rico in a helicopter and salutes members of the military. Then the video jolts back in time to Trump touring a neighborhood just outside San Juan — which was easily reached by motorcade and did not require helicopter travel — and visiting an evangelical church.

Calvary Chapel is the largest English-speaking church on the island, and many of its members are in the military, federal workers or transplants from the mainland. Jason Dennett, the church’s pastor, said a Secret Service agent who used to live in Puerto Rico suggested Trump visit the church about a week before his visit. The day that Trump visited, Dennett said, there were about 150 locals at the church, although many seemed more interested in getting a photo with Trump than obtaining canned food or paper towels.

On the video, the footage goes into slow-motion as Trump hands a can of chicken into the crowd at the church. The camera also zooms in on pro-Trump signs in the church, including one that reads “Let’s Make Puerto Rico Great Again,” a play on the president’s campaign slogan.

At the end, it’s back to the helicopter ride to the Kearsarge, into a briefing with members of the military and on to the deck, where Trump shook hands with those aboard.

The video then fades to black, and a white icon of the White House pops onto the screen.

I can't watch the video or I'll became even more angry.

*shakes head and sighs*

I have a question. How does one feel good about oneself when one must continually make media presentations touting one's goodness? Heavily edited media presentations. If this were only about what American has done(no) for Puerto Rico, there would be no need for footage, apparently considerable footage of one particular person. Obviously that person is incapable of understanding that point but how can anyone else be fooled by this? It would be one thing if this person at least appeared to be working most of the time. But how does one MAGA from the golf course?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

WTAF? "Trump threatens to abandon Puerto Rico recovery effort"

Spoiler

President Trump served notice Thursday that he may pull back federal relief workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to abandon the U.S. territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Declaring the U.S. territory's electrical grid and infrastructure to have been a “disaster before hurricanes,” Trump wrote Thursday that it will be up to Congress how much federal money to appropriate to the island for its recovery efforts and that recovery workers will not stay “forever.”

In a trio of tweets, Trump wrote” “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”

Three weeks since Maria made landfall, much of Puerto Rico, an island of 3.4 million people, the vast majority of the island remains without power. Residents struggle to find clean water, hospitals are running short on medicine and commerce is slow with many businesses closed.

Trump on Thursday sought to shame the territory for its own plight. He tweeted, “Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes.” And he quoted Sharyl Attkisson, a television journalist, as saying, “Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.”

... < nasty tweets from the TT >

Trump has been roundly criticized for his leadership in coming to Puerto Rico's aid. Trump, in response, has tried to portray the island as in full recovery mode, even as it suffers from enduring health, power and water problems. During a visit last week, he tossed rolls of paper towels at local residents as if they were basketballs, drawing scorn from local leaders, and noted that the death toll was lower than the “real catastrophe” of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In a visit to the island last week, Vice President Pence vowed that the administration will be with Puerto Rico “every step of the way.”

“I say to all of you gathered here today to the people of Puerto Rico:  We are with you, we stand with you, and we will be with you every single day until Puerto Rico is restored bigger and better than ever before,” he said.

Trump himself made a similar promise, saying in a Sept. 29 speech, “We will not rest, however, until the people of Puerto Rico are safe.” He added, “These are great people. We want them to be safe and sound and secure. And we will be there every day until that happens.”

Last night, Rachel Maddow announced that there have now been deaths in Puerto Rico from Leptospirosis, which comes from drinking contaminated water. Lepto is a nasty disease, and is preventable (with clean drinking water) and treatable (with doxycycline), but people are dying from it. This is horrible.

[Ali]

I feel sick. I hate this!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/10/12/trump-warns-puerto-rico-we-cannot-keep-fema-the-military-the-first-responders-forever/?utm_term=.88545b1c1410

Spoiler

President Trump served notice Thursday that he may pull back federal relief workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to abandon the U.S. territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Declaring the U.S. territory's electrical grid and infrastructure to have been a “disaster before hurricanes,” Trump wrote Thursday that it will be up to Congress how much federal money to appropriate to the island for its recovery efforts and that recovery workers will not stay “forever.”

 

[candygirl200413]

I've had back-to-back dreams of chlorea outbreaks in PR and fuckface laughing about it. I honestly think he will end aid very soon because "ratings" and how lazy he feels like they are. He is a psychopath and makes me so ill.

[GrumpyGran]

28 minutes ago, candygirl200413 said:

I've had back-to-back dreams of chlorea outbreaks in PR and fuckface laughing about it. I honestly think he will end aid very soon because "ratings" and how lazy he feels like they are. He is a psychopath and makes me so ill.

I think we all live now with a sense of forboding that there is something bad just around the corner. I know I am having disturbing dreams, although I can rarely remember exactly what I have dreamed. I wake up and feel anxious and tired. There is nothing really solid to hope for, so it causes a feeling of helplessness. Ugh.

 

[GrumpyGran]

Oh, and in case you missed it because there's just so much other shit to deal with every hour of every day, Ophelia is our next hurricane in the Atlantic. But no worries, fellow East Coasters, it's headed to Ireland. Yep, Ireland.

Global Warming, you say? Fake News! Yeah, this hasn't happened in over a hundred years.

[candygirl200413]

@GrumpyGran I  made the mistake this morning of checking twitter on my birthday and Paul Ryan was like "welp PR just needs to pull their bootstraps and figure it out!" while fuckface said how he talked to the president of the Virgin Islands. Why yes I am about to break out the wine bottle a couple hours before my dinner!

[GrumpyGran]

15 minutes ago, candygirl200413 said:

@GrumpyGran I  made the mistake this morning of checking twitter on my birthday and Paul Ryan was like "welp PR just needs to pull their bootstraps and figure it out!" while fuckface said how he talked to the president of the Virgin Islands. Why yes I am about to break out the wine bottle a couple hours before my dinner!

Sometimes I wonder why I stop drinking. Well, Happy Birthday, anyway!

[Imaginary_Wonderland]

I was following Hurricane Harvey and Irma closely when they happened (my cousin lives in Texas where it hit, and my Mum's best friend from school was home visiting from Florida where she now lives while Irma was going on). I was worried and concerned and hopeful of course, but at the same time, I couldn't really comprehend that kinda storm/weather situation. I remember looking at the devastation and being glad that here in Ireland, we don't get those extreme weather situations. I hate the Irish weather, and always complaining about the non-existent summers, but I was appreciating that compared to the effects for those people in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico etc.

Today and yesterday, here in Ireland, have been lovely and warm sunny. I had to remind myself it was mid-October. Such weather days would be a welcome surprise here in the height of summer but totally unheard of for Oct. It was only last week, I pulled out my ugg boots, hats and gloves and blanket scarf and hot water bottle because I was frozen cold. I have a flight out on Tuesday morning to Fuerteventura (first holiday in 4 years). Now I am worried flights might be cancelled. I never really expected a storm coming this way, which is silly I know. Reading up on it, It says it is red warning apparently, and varying reports of 80-100 mph. That doesn't sound good, but I have no idea how serious that means.

 

[Bethella]

On 10/14/2017 at 2:44 PM, Imaginary_Wonderland said:

Reading up on it, It says it is red warning apparently, and varying reports of 80-100 mph. That doesn't sound good, but I have no idea how serious that means.

Obviously you should pay more attention to your local forecast but this is a generic description of the damage expected from various hurricane strengths. Taken from http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php 

Category 1: 74-95 mph (119-153 km/h) Very dangerous winds will produce some damage: Well-constructed frame homes could have damage to roof, shingles, vinyl siding and gutters. Large branches of trees will snap and shallowly rooted trees may be toppled. Extensive damage to power lines and poles likely will result in power outages that could last a few to several days.

Category 2: 96-110 mph (154-177 km/h) Extremely dangerous winds will cause extensive damage: Well-constructed frame homes could sustain major roof and siding damage. Many shallowly rooted trees will be snapped or uprooted and block numerous roads. Near-total power loss is expected with outages that could last from several days to weeks.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is horrifying: "Desperate Puerto Ricans line up for water — at a hazardous-waste site"

Spoiler

DORADO, Puerto Rico — Every 10 minutes or so, a truck or a van pulled up to the exposed spigot of an overgrown well, known as Maguayo #4, that sits not far from a bustling expressway and around the corner from a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.

Fencing around the area had been torn open, and a red and white “Peligro” sign, warning of danger, lay hidden beneath debris and dense vegetation. One after another, people attached a hose to draw water for bathing, washing dishes and, in some cases, drinking. They filled buckets, jugs, soda bottles.

What many didn’t realize is that the well is one of nearly a dozen that are part of the Dorado Groundwater Contamination Superfund site — designated last year by the Environmental Protection Agency as among the nation’s most toxic sites.

Past testing here has shown the presence of tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene, solvents commonly used in industrial processes, which can cause health problems including liver damage and increased risk of cancer. The EPA has yet to identify the cause of groundwater contamination in the wells, and local water systems no longer draw from them.

But the aftermath of Hurricane Maria has brought desperation in many forms. In this corner of the island, many residents still have no reliable source of water and search for access wherever they can.

It’s difficult to know just how many people have sought water from the Superfund site in the weeks since the Category 4 hurricane walloped Puerto Rico and crippled its infrastructure. The central water authority continues to depend on generators and some limited electricity-grid power to keep pumps working at plants across the island. As of Sunday, the government announced it had restored service to nearly 70 percent of customers.

But for the families who live in Dorado, nothing is yet flowing in their homes. In a single hour on Saturday, more than four families arrived at the unsecured Maguayo well to draw water. None was aware of the potential dangers. Several assumed the well was part of the “Supertubo” that carries water to greater San Juan, roughly 20 miles to the east.

In the late morning, EPA officials arrived on the scene just as a man and two children were topping off a 50-gallon container on the back of his pickup. Andres, who declined to give his last name, said he had been using the water for bathing and had no idea it might be contaminated.

The dozen officials, armed with kits, gloves and other materials to conduct tests, hastily reassembled the broken chain-link fence near the spigot and restored the “Danger” sign.

Recent local testing showed that contamination levels were below legal thresholds, but EPA spokesman Elias Rodriguez said the agency remains concerned about any residents drinking from wells that are part of the site. Officials said Sunday that data gathered in 2015 showed some wells were contaminated — exceeding standards for volatile organic chemicals — while others met drinking-water standards. The entire area was included in the Superfund site boundaries as a “precautionary measure” because groundwater contamination can move over time, the EPA said.

An agency statement said that the results of the bacteria portion of its testing should be available by midweek and that its chemical analysis should be completed by the end of next week.

Residents unwittingly drawing water from a Superfund site is merely one example of Puerto Rico’s dire lack of clean, reliable water. Government officials have said it could be months before power is fully restored across the island, which means that it could take nearly as long to get water flowing to all residents in need. National Guard troops and aid workers only recently began reaching the most far-flung communities with bottled water and water trucks.

The massive disruptions have forced residents to forgo the basics of modern plumbing and resort to any means available to fill containers. Along Highway 10, which cuts a jagged north-south route through the center of Puerto Rico, vehicles frequently line the road shoulders as drivers search for spring water flowing from craggy mountainsides.

In the mountainous municipality of Comerio, flooding from the hurricane left residents cut off from the central government and outside aid. So locals used plastic pipes to install a crude system to reroute spring water to a clearing where, one by one, people could shower. Elsewhere, residents have slogged regularly to creeks to fetch water and to bathe.

With the lack of reliable water has come increasing fear of disease.

Already, the island government has identified four suspected deaths as a result of leptospirosis, a bacterial infection spread by animal urine in the soil or groundwater. The deaths won’t be certified as “hurricane-related” unless the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms lab samples indicating the victims became infected by drinking or having contact with contaminated water.

The health risks posed by water from the Maguayo well probably depend on the person, Rodriguez said. Any hazards might be more risky for vulnerable populations, such as elderly people or pregnant women.

Another EPA spokesman, Rusty Harris-Bishop, said government officials only recently learned that people were trying to get water at Superfund sites. In one case, a local resident contacted the agency to request access to a well.

Harris-Bishop said the EPA began sending assessment teams late last week to evaluate hazardous waste sites in Dorado, Hormigas and San German. After surveying those locations and two others, the agency says it believes residents were able to access wells only at the Dorado site, although officials acknowledge they have no way of knowing how many people carted away water before the site was again secured Saturday.

The EPA is working with the Federal Emergency Management Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure water trucks are reaching nearby neighborhoods. “We are sensitive to the suffering and needs of these communities,” Harris-Bishop said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@Imaginary_Wonderland -- I was reading about the impact Ophelia has had on Ireland. I hope you're doing okay. The Captial Weather Gang had a good article about it: "Former Hurricane Ophelia rocks Ireland with 100-mph wind gusts"

Spoiler

Former Hurricane Ophelia plowed into southern Ireland early Monday, unleashing wind gusts as high as 119 mph, ripping off roofs and downing trees. The Irish Meteorological Service said it could be the country’s strongest storm in 50 years.

The BBC reported the storm had caused at least three deaths. The Journal, an Irish news outlet, said an “unprecedented” 360,000 customers were without power.

Schools throughout Ireland were closed Monday and Tuesday, and bus and rail services were extremely limited.

As the storm swept through its southern areas, the Irish Meteorological Service described the winds as “violent and destructive” and predicted damaging winds to “extend rapidly to the rest of the country” Monday afternoon.

All of Ireland was under a “status red” wind warning, the highest level. Several locations — mostly in extreme southwest Ireland — reported wind gusts exceeding hurricane force, including:

• 119 mph gust at Fastnet Rock, a lighthouse about 8 miles offshore of southwest Ireland, at height of 200 feet.
• 97 mph gust at Roches Point, a lighthouse at the entrance to Cork Harbor.
• 84 mph gust at Sherkin Island, before power loss.
• 78 mph gust at Cork Airport, before power loss.
• 76 mph gust at Shannon Airport.

If the 119 mph gust at Fastnet Rock is verified and considered official, it would break the record for Ireland’s strongest wind gust of 113 mph set at Malin Head, at Ireland’s northern tip, during Hurricane Debbie in 1961.

Wind gusts of at least tropical storm-force (39 mph and higher) affected much of Ireland. Dublin recorded a gust of 65 mph.

Images from social media showed roofs sheared off a school gym and soccer stadium in Cork, a university city just inland from Ireland’s southwest coast, where wind gusts reached hurricane strength.

As the storm and its winds piled water up along Ireland’s west coast, the ocean surged inland. In Salthill, on Ireland’s central west coast, David Blevins, a correspondent for Sky News, tweeted that coastal defenses were “completely breached.”

While destructive, the storm was moving very quickly and was expected to exit southern areas by 4 to 6 p.m. Monday local time, and northern areas by around midnight.

Effects on the United Kingdom

The U.K. Met Office issued an “amber wind warning,” its second-highest alert, for Northern Ireland as well as parts of north and west Wales and extreme southwest Scotland.

“There is a good chance that power cuts may occur, with the potential to affect other services, such as mobile phone coverage,” the Met Office warned. “Flying debris is likely, such as tiles blown from roofs, as well as large waves around coastal districts with beach material being thrown onto coastal roads, sea fronts and properties.”

Wind gusts to hurricane force reached west Wales, where a 90-mph gust was clocked in Aberdaron, a former fishing village. Belfast, in northern Ireland, logged a gust of 53 mph.

Southeast of where the storm was expected to pass, very mild air was being drawn northward on strong southerly winds. London’s temperature reached at least 72 degrees Monday afternoon, local time.

These southerly winds were also carrying dust from the Sahara over the United Kingdom, causing the sun to appear red:

When Ophelia became a major — Category 3 (or higher) — hurricane Saturday, it marked the sixth such storm to form in the Atlantic this year, tied with 1933, 1961, 1964 and 2004 for the most through Oct. 14, according to Phil Klotzbach, tropical weather researcher at Colorado State University.

The storm is most remarkable, however, for where it reached such strength — becoming the first storm to reach Category 3 strength so far east.

Much-above-normal water temperatures and light upper-level winds helped the storm reach such unusual intensity so far north and east in the Atlantic Ocean.

While having a major hurricane so far east in the Atlantic Ocean is rare, it is not particularly unusual for former tropical weather systems to slam into Ireland and the United Kingdom. As we wrote Friday, this happens about once every several years, on average, conservatively.

There are many images in the story, some sad, some quite interesting.