‘We have been completely abandoned by our government and the US. My brother’s friend is a cop, his advice was arm yourselves with whatever you can find and do what you need to do. If you had signal you could try calling the cops but they won’t come. He said that if we shoot someone we should just leave their body in the street and they will come and pick it up in the morning.” What does that quote from 22-year-old Puerto Rican Haniel Pomales [via dailymail.co.uk] tell you?

 

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79 COMMENTS

    • Why would you trust any non-voluntary government to “help” you or rescue you from disaster? Government “help” is usually not much help, and comes with endless strings. Far better to prepare yourself, and work in voluntary association with others to pool your skills and efforts.

      • Oh, I don’t. I answered the wrong question. I thought it was “What can the people of Puerto Rico learn from Maria?” but it’s not. This is nothing new. Par for the course self reliance winning out in the end. The bit about colony only being important because it’s, you know, in the middle of the ocean.

    • Relying on the government at any time is dicey not just in an island territory in the middle of the ocean.

      Compounding the problems is the fact that the federal government in response to the wishes of the Borinquens has been reducing it’s footprint on the island especially with the personnel and the equipment so desperately needed now.

    • PR isn’t a colony. It is a US territory. In two separate vote years apart citizens had a chance to vote on becoming an independent nation. The UN even voted that it supported PR’s effort to become independent. A majority (of the 22.9% of eligible voters who turned out to vote chose “become a state,” not independence. Congress has repeatedly rejected the notion of admitting PR as a state, with good reason.

      I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but know them fairly well: PR’s Commonwealth Government approves a budget (spending and taxing) of about 9.9 billion dollars a year. It ends up spending 11.4 billion. It’s wholly owned power and water/sever companies run losses every year because they charge too little and employ vastly too many workers. (This is called “inefficiently run” by economists.)

      The Commonwealth Budget is one thing. Then they also report a Consolidated Budget: this budget combines the CB, US Subsidies, Corporate profits/losses fro gov owned corps, and a few other items. The total is about 26 billion $. 25% of this 26 billion consists of US subsidies. In other words the US taxpayer funds an amount equal to 7/9ths of PR’s annual commonwealth budget –and they’re still bankrupt.

      My main tennis hitting partner over the last 14 years grew up in PR, came here for college and stayed, and is a senior executive of a major tech co. He says PR voters always. vote for more subsidies, more entitlements, etc. The teachers and municipal workers unions are grossly overpaid compared to the local economy standards.

      PR’s pension deficit is $50 billion. It’s government bond debt is approx. $73 billion. Oh, and they have consistently voted to give people more stuff, and to NOT spend on infrastructure, such as a modern robust electrical grid. Did I mention they have a high murder rate, but that it is very difficult to legally carry a defensive pistol? Trump has it rightj. Carmen Yulín Cruz is a left-winger who realized that when she can’t justify her own failure to motivate truckers, cops, and linemen, the best move is to rag on the US and Trump.

      • Lets be honest, the mainland US does not have at “modern robust electrical grid”. What exists is totally vulnerable to an EMP or computer attack. Locally (or regionally), the three US grids are highly dependent on unreliable intermittent sources of generation from overpriced solar/wind plants. AND the entire system often operates at near 100% of installed generation capacity. Obumer admin made substantial progress in eliminating the most reliable, low cost production capacity we have on line (coal power plants).

  2. There is only one person that you can count on to be there when you need them, and even they might be unreliable.

  3. Boy Scouts of America have been teaching this simple statement for decades:

    “Be Prepared”

    • I guess I would make that; be prepared and armed. Never rely on Governmental agencies to protect you under any circumstances EVER.

    • I can’t tell you how many times what I learned as a Cub/Boy Scout from 1970 until 1981 and later as a leader and summer camp staff member/Program Director/volunteer has helped in natural disasters, from a historic 1,000 year flood, to blizzards, severe thunderstorms, and hurricanes like Sandy I knew what to do and was prepared for the worst. I thanked my father before he passed away for getting me involved and donating his time as an assistant scoutmaster and Sea Scout Skipper letting him know if it wasn’t for him and others I would have been as lost as some of my neighbors were in those trying circumstances, he replied ‘that’s what it’s all about”.

      If you can, volunteer, you can make a difference, you may not reach all of them but the ones you do will appreciate it when the skills they learned as a Scout are put to good use.

  6. Progressive socialism is just great isn’t it? Where is the compassion of the great socialist government?

    • It’s a wholly right wing reactionary controlled government. Finding answers in fantasy doesn’t help.

      • You’ve obviously never been to PR. I have for work many times. It is as left wing socialist as the State of Kalifornia but worse. You are insane.

  7. Tgp has a call up from a cop in san juan who says the mayor is holding back relief to play politics. This was 2 days ago. She held a presser IN FRONT OF A COUPLE TONS OF SUPPLIES and went on about Trump. THAT is what you can expect if you rely on politicians when shtf; they will play politics with your life.

    • Or, far more likely, she’s unable to actually get the supplies out. Puerto Rico has a trucking shortage, only a fifth of truckers have reported back after Maria, and infrastructure damage makes even their efforts difficult. I’m not saying she’s not, but don’t ascribe to malice what can easily be summed up by incompetence.

      • “Puerto Rico has a trucking shortage”

        Yes, it does. But compounding the shortage is the curfew that prohibits fuel deliveries from 7 pm to 5 am. No fuel = no transportation.

        Brilliant!

        But let’s face it. A government that can’t meet the routine needs of its citizens during “normal” times cannot be expected to handle a disaster.

        • It is extremely difficult to defend fuel trucks during hours of darkness. Hijacking isn’t a threat in PR. It is a sport.

      • Cruz, the San Juan mayor that praised the release of the FALN terrorists by Obama, had not attended ONE FEMA coordination meeting. She had the press conference at the same time FEMA was meeting a few blocks away about coordinating distribution of aid on the island.

        She is doing NOTHING to aid her residents.

        As to the gun laws in PR, when I visited I noticed the governors bodyguards had Uzis under their coats – of course the paisanos don’t need any stinking guns…

    • “Tgp has a call up from a cop in san juan who says the mayor is holding back relief to play politics. This was 2 days ago. She held a presser IN FRONT OF A COUPLE TONS OF SUPPLIES and went on about Trump. THAT is what you can expect if you rely on politicians when shtf; they will play politics with your life.”

      *BINGO*

      From above :

      “‘We have been completely abandoned by our government and the US…”

      LIES.

      Bald-faced, fucking LIES.

      The hurricane response was activated BEFORE the storm hit :

      “No, Trump Didn’t Botch the Puerto Rico Crisis
      A Q&A with former Navy Captain Jerry Hendrix on smart preparations the White House and Pentagon made for the looming storm.”

      https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-30/no-trump-didn-t-botch-the-puerto-rico-crisis

      There is NOTHING too low for the Leftists to do to stick a knife in Trump if they can.

      The ‘Mayor’ earlier had nothing but good things to say about Trump, until her DEMOCRAT handlers got a hold of her to tow the DEMOCRAT party line.

      The problems for Puerto Rico are just starting. The only good thing about the next few months is that the weather will cool off slightly and be a bit drier.

      The islands tel-coms are mostly DESTROYED. Most cell towers (about *80* of them) are knocked flat. There are probably a few in warehouses that can be shipped, but cell service is going to be *severely* degraded for MONTHS.

      Take a look at what happened to the National Weather Service’s powerful Doppler radar when it took a *direct* hit from the eyewall :

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/09/25/hurricane-maria-destroyed-puerto-ricos-radar-a-critical-tool-for-forecasting/

      This is the last radar scan it made :

      https://www.wunderground.com/weather-radar/united-states/pr/san-juan/jua/

      If you have friends – loved ones on the island and want to help them communicate (and they aren’t HAM radio operators) , pick up an Iridium satellite phone and a small solar panel to charge it. Handsets start at around 1000 USD. Plans start as low as 50 USD a month for service, and airtime charges are per minute.

      That is the most reliable way to stay in contact down there.

      https://www.iridium.com/services/types/Voice-Services

      They do data as well, that costs extra…

  8. I got a friend working the relief effort. The sheer amount of supplies being shipped there is staggering. The supplies are getting there, politics are only allowing a trickle to get to the population.

    POTG should take note, the government won’t support you, do it yourself.

    I have a question, if you live in an area that has a propensity for violent weather patterns, why don’t you have your own supplies, why are you relying on .gov to support you completely when you did nothing prepare for what could happen. Maybe alot of people did, that’s why I suspect the civil unrest isn’t as bad as it could be.

  9. Puerto Rico gun laws:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Puerto_Rico#Licensing_process

    Individuals who wish to purchase a firearm to keep at home (known as a license to possess, or licencia de posesión de armas) must be 21 years or older, be a US citizen or legal resident of Puerto Rico, never have renounced US citizenship, not be under a restraining order, submit a notarized application, three character references from individuals who are not close relatives of the applicant, proof of non-delinquency in child support payments, fingerprints, photographs, and pay a $100 fee. The license holder is limited to possessing two firearms (there is an exception for firearms acquired through inheritance), purchasing up to 50 bullets per year per firearm possessed, and may only purchase ammunition of the firearms’ caliber. If any of the bullets are used or lost, police authorization is required in order to replenish them.

    After the license is granted, the police are authorized to “passively, without disturbing the peace and tranquility of the individual under investigation or violating the privacy of the home” continue investigating the license holder to ensure that no false information was provided by the applicant during the application process. The license must be renewed every five years by submitting a sworn statement and paying a $100 fee.

    • And every once in a while we’ll hear someone bring up the idea of Puerto Rico joining the United States – I have to wonder if those who advocate for that have considered that PR would then be required to abide by our Constitution… all of it?

      • You mean follow the Constitution like California and New Jersey, or any other may issue state does. Sound to me like PR gun laws are not much more strict than, say Hawaii.

    • I was aware of the draconian nature of PR gun laws, but I suspect the population regularly defies the gun laws and the local cops turn blind eye to the practice. I can’t imagine putting up with that level of BS myself, since it flies in the face of the Second Amendment and they are US Citizens in a US Territory.

  10. “He said that if we shoot someone we should just leave their body in the street and they will come and pick it up in the morning.”

    That’s exactly the way it’s done in the South Bronx.

  11. The same thing Katrina taught me. Don’t live somewhere that has a Democrat governor and a chance of being hit by a Hurricane.

    • Huh, noticed that Democrat hurricane targets have crappier times. Crispy Creme and Sandy being the outlier, though he’s a D as far as I’m concerned.

      • The northeast isn’t built to handle even a minor hurricane. Mostly they haven’t taken storm surge into account.

        It’s pretty much how anywhere on the Gulf Coast will shut down if there is any snow that doesn’t melt immediately when it hits the ground.

        If there is a weather condition that is considered frequent if it happens once a decade, the locality will not be prepared for it.

      • Mainly because both the mayor and police chief wisely stayed out of the way while people who actually knew what they were doing took over. Contrast that with Katrina . . . and now Puerto Rico.

        • The Mayor of ANY community in the US is IN CHARGE of recover and relief efforts. As assisted by local Emergency Management Coordinator and his agency.

          State and Fed Homeland security (in that order) may be called in (by the mayor) for assistance if local assets are not sufficient to handle the emergency. They can/will respond with assistance with what they have available. At the state level that would be from any state agency and the state national guard.

          The Mayor may or may not (progtard) be competent to wipe their ass on a normal day. And then may not be smart enough to ask for or use help available. There is no provision for FEMA to arrive and conduct a coup (as the FBI practices in “law enforcement”). The locals selected their Mayor and they have to, and should, have to live with their wisdom or stupidity.

        • Texas by and large has independently thinking people. Save a few cities of democratic refugee, the vast majority of the people can and will take care of themselves if needed.

          We also have a lot of people who are willing to drop everything to help out others in need. I had dozens of friends who loaded supplies and headed south after Harvey.

          The people of Texas acted as their own first responder. That’s how it should be.

        • Joel has it right. Can’t count how many friends and neighbors took part in the Cajun Navy during the Houston efforts.

          • Garrison Hall and neiowa really have the right of it. What Garrison said also applies to the Red Cross. They can be more of a hindrance than a help.

  12. You would think people would have learned after Katrina, the government will not be there when you need them the most. It is just not possible for them to be able to provide help to everyone. Prepare as best you can, especially if you live somewhere prone to natural disasters or terrible weather.

    I thought having a week’s worth of food would be enough, but after how long it may take to restore power, you might want 1-2 months, plus the ability to have water enough for the same amount of time. That way you don’t have to rely on the government immediately to “save” you. The 1-2 months of food and water allow you to figure out how to acquire more or evacuate the area.

  13. Puerto Rico has been a socialist society for many years. Sucking from the socialist tit and relying on their government for everything. Over 60 Billion dollars in debt. A 3rd world infrastructure and now Mother Nature comes along and throws chaos into the mix. Not to hard to figure out the outcome. They don’t have the ability to run their country. Why would anyone think they could rebuild their country. Should We help…Yes… They are a part of our nation. I do believe that help should come with a cost. Since they will Never be able to take care of themselves as shown with their recent history. They should be made to choose. If they wish to continue down the road to socialism We grant them their Independence(As many there have been wanting for years) and let them sink or swim on their own. Since I know many people who have come from Puerto Rico to escape the socialist controlled government and the problems that has created. Everything I have said about the country is fact based.

    • Many do not want to be independent. They just voted for statehood – again. I’m Puerto Rican and lived there myself. Only the the extremists/actual socialists who constitute less than 6 percent want independence. Everyone else sees it as a crack pot idea. I don’t agree with most of the politics there (especially about gun laws), but to insinuate that a lot of the island wants to break away is just wrong and certainly not based on fact.

    • It lasted like 2 months. PR’s supreme court shot it down and restored the old laws. Its stuck in limbo until the SC takes up May Issue.

  15. One KEY factor in prelude to all of the catastrophe that is being swept under the rug by the local and provincial government and the liberals from the mainland is that PUERTO RICO IS A BROKEN AND BROKE GOVERNMENT. So even before the hurricanes, they were in bad shape. If their current status quo is a “MINUS10” right now, they were at “MINUS5” leading up to. Even with a modernized and sound infrastructure, the blow dealt by Maria would still have severely damaged that Island Territory. Illustratively, Texas, with their preparedness and planning, would be at “ZERO” ending at “MINUS8”. All the more impressive is that the Lone Star State dealt with the same storm intensity, and at a much larger scale, and they’re not the news two weeks later. When your infrastructure fails you before the storm, it is going to help you even less after. Supplies and aid are there and have been sent and continues to be sent.I guarantee you that anyone in power or with might (aka guns/military/police) have everything they need. It isn’t about the Puerto Ricans nor was it ever. May be I’ll take a knee next time I see a PR flag in protest…For the People

    • EXACTLY WHY IT’S “JUST LIKE KATRINA”

      The 9th ward was buoyed by years of billions of dollars wasted on graft, then boo-hoo, look how we’re a 4th world country (instead of a U.S. Territory). F them all, for all the problems that they’ve already GIVEN US.

  16. what can you learn? when the government is wiped out and the infrastructure destroyed, people are on their own. what happens next depends on the type and quality of the people. is it “each man to himself” with looting, robbing and raping, or do they pull together and work it out? if they were good people, they should have not much more hardship than when the first settlers to that island got off the boat. no roads? no electricity? houses, cars and hospitals smashed? no food trucks? big deal.

  17. Just what is it that the people of Puerto Rico expect the “Government” to do??
    I went through the same hurricane. Have some pretty bad damages here and 2 weeks later except for a ton of downed trees. Life is almost back to normal.
    100 miles south of here,
    The Keys are like an occupied zone. Some home owners still today cant get back to their homes. Whats left of them.
    Is that what the PRs want??
    The point is don’t depend on Gubbermint. You will be terribly disappointed. Or mad. In any event.you cant win..
    You have to take care of yourselves Puerto Rico.

  18. What good are supplies if roving gangs show up and you cannot defend yourself and your family?

    Puerto Rico will get a LOT worse before it gets better. There are about 3 million people. Assuming they’d only get 2 meals a day and they’d have to be MREs because nobody has power, that’s 6 million MREs a day.

    How long will it take to get power back? Authorities are saying “months.” What about clean water? No answers yet. Even if all of the piping and structures can be fixed, the pipes will still need a good flushing to make them usable again. US warships all have the ability to generate large amounts of clean water, but at 8 lbs per gallon, water is HEAVY. How do you get 1 gallon per day per person inland?

    Let’s assume that everyone performs like a superhero and PR is fully up and running again in only 30 days (a wild stretch IMO, but, hey, miracles happen). That’s 180 million MREs and 90 million gallons of water. A standard pallet of MREs/meals is 49″L x 41″W x 49″H and weighs 1,000lbs. 48 cases per pallet, 12 MREs per case. That’s 576 MREs per pallet, about 1,152 per ton.

    PR would need 156,250 TONS of MREs to feed its’ people for one month. Think that can actually happen?

    Why do people prepare? Consider what would happen if 320 million people in CONUS were suddenly without power for a month.

  19. Doesn’t she look pretty,all freshly showered and made up for her press conference.Oh,that’s right she has NO water or power,hmmm……….

  20. Things I’ve learned

    1. At the end of the day, the only person that gives a damn about you or your family is you. No matter what anyone tells you, to the government, you are nothing but tax revenue or political pawns.

    2. If you have a say in the matter, don’t live near area that get super strong hurricanes.

    3. Be prepared for anything. As mentioned in point 1, no one cares about you, so make sure you can ride out the bad times

  21. No amount of aid and centrally-administered “assistance” can handle a disaster when the people are willfully incompetent & passive. Don’t be that guy. Or the other that guy.

    (Giving aid to willfully passive and incompetent folks – doesn’t help. Being willfully incompetent and passive – so much suck.)

  22. “Aid” — classical: helping people help themselves.

    “Aid” — modern: goods and services provided to people who wast and abuse them while demanding more.

  24. “What Can The People of the Gun Learn from Puerto Rico?”

    That’s an easy one:

    (1) Living on an island in the Caribbean accessible only by sea & air is dangerous.

    (2) Living in a community where the majority of the population is dependent on government to survive is a recipe for disaster.

    What gets me is that only 50% of Puerto Rico’s National Guard appeared at their armories when “called up” prior to the storm hitting the island, they MUST be held to accountable and face Court Martial.

  25. We’ll see a massive uptick in “gun death” hot takes, with newly inflated numbers.

    Personally, if a particular murdering thug is a quad confined to a wheelchair, I’m willing to count the death as “enabled” by the gun – “gun violence.” Otherwise, the killing was enabled because the victim was unarmed, and counts the other way – “killed by gun control.”

    They won’t count that way. Given PR’s gun laws, there will be way, way, way more of the second kind.

  26. We have an elderly female friend who lives on Vieques. We don’t know yet what happened to her. She was trying to sell her so-called slice of paradise years before the hurricanes…PR is dead. No lesson but don’t live there,be armed,PREP and above all NEVER trust the gubment…

  27. The lesson I see at PR? Same as in Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Tampa, Miami, Orlando, Tallahassee, Detroit, Jacksonville, Sanford, Alexandria, Charlottesville, Houston, Minneapolis, St. Louis, the DC Swamp, Chiraq, etc, etc.
    The lesson is NEVER TRUST any libtard/progtard, ever, specially if they’re “with the government” and there are live TV cameras around.
    They will push anybody into a lava pit very quickly if they think it helps their political grandstanding in any way. Suffering be dammed as they just look down their noses at everybody else, which they consider beneath them.

    • You hit the nail right on the head, Democrat controlled cities (& islands like Puerto Rico) are riddled with corruption, mismanagement, greed, and plain incompetence, they are death traps and responsible for far more crime, disease, poverty, and fatalities than natural disasters themselves.

  28. 1) Don’t live on an island in a hurricane-prone area.
    2) Especially if the structures aren’t designed to handle hurricanes.
    3) Especially if the infrastructure (electrical systems, communication systems) aren’t designed to handle hurricanes.
    4) Especially if the laws prevent you from arming yourself for your own defense and survival.
    5) If the government can’t function effectively under normal circumstances, it can’t function AT ALL during a natural disaster.

  30. It’s nice to be a prepper and all by one’s self, but a man alone in this sort of situation isn’t going to fare all that well. Ya gotta sleep sometime, and that’s when it would be nice to have someone watching your back.

    Preppers and independent people need to form networks of similar-minded people, with as wide variety of skills, resources and training as possible. In a situation like Puerto Rico, you’d need to keep it low key – because in the third world, there’s always an endless supply of thieves, brigands, pirates and riffraff of all sorts, ready to try to steal anything useful you and your associates might have, and many of them will work for the government. You need to have emergency comm gear in place, checked for function, etc. Right now, I’ll wager that amateur radio operators who have some sort of emergency power are in rather high demand right now. In PR, the most useful amateurs will have HF rigs.

    You need to plan for the breakdown of civil society. In the third world, civil society is a veneer, not a structure.

    Towards that end, a conversation I had with a white farmer from Africa was rather ominously instructive. He said that your loose network of associates and fellow back-watchers need to have a plan for when (“This is not an ‘if’ thing,” he said) you need to dispose of some of the local wildlife that might try to rob/kill/rape/etc you and/or your associates when “things go sideways.” He said “Some annoyances will just need to disappear, without explanation or evidence,” he said “and this goes much more smoothly when one has already made plans and preparations.”

    • “Preppers and independent people need to form networks of similar-minded people, with as wide variety of skills, resources and training as possible.”

      It’s called a “pastoral nomadic society”. Pastoral nomad tribes are one of humanity’s oldest and most resilient social organizations. Entirely self-contained and highly mobile when necessary, they can take care of themselves. The Pashtuns in Afghanistan, who’ve been holding their own against the best we can throw at them, are pastoral nomads.

    • “Right now, I’ll wager that amateur radio operators who have some sort of emergency power are in rather high demand right now. In PR, the most useful amateurs will have HF rigs.”

      Happening right now.

      ” (CNN)The phone call from the Red Cross came in late Friday night, just as the full scale of Hurricane Maria’s calamity began taking shape.
      “We need 50 of your best radio operators to go down to Puerto Rico.””

      The ARRL and the American Red Cross are teaming up and providing generators and a ‘Go Box’ of a modern HF rig, antennas, tuner, ect. packed a big Pelican Case ‘trunk’ :

      http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/us/puerto-rico-maria-ham-radio-operators-trnd/index.html

      • If I weren’t so busy and out of shape as an operator, I’d volunteer to go down there.

        At one time, I noodled along at 45 WPM. I can still type at 80+ WPM. Some of the new digital modes would make short work of the traffic load from PR to the mainland if a couple trained operators were available on each end.

        That said, one of the things that I find most remarkable since getting involved with EMS is how atrocious the radio procedures of most people in emergency services are – not to mention how absurdly non-functional many of the EMS radio systems are.

  31. “Preppers and independent people need to form networks of similar-minded people, with as wide variety of skills, resources and training as possible.”

    There’s much to be said for crotchety people with homesteading skills. If they have regular service interruptions to keep them in practice, so much the better.

    Where I grew up a plurality were 3rd, 4th, 5th-generation German, Scots, Irish dirt farmers, in hollows and homesteads that typically started at 100 acres back in the day. Not so much these days, but the skills and mindset propagated through the generations a bit.

    Everybody canned. Everybody had a garden. Everybody had a pantry & larder they could live off of for weeks. Every house had a source of heat that didn’t need power, and you figured how much water you’d need for 3-4 days in sizing the water system.

    Even people who didn’t hunt for larder had a varmint gun / truck gun.

    It took me the longest time in “civilization” to realize so many people are utterly dependent on the continuous, sustained influx of everything they need to survive. They just assume the 3 bodegas on the block will always be stocked. They might as well breathe air piped into their vaults, it’s that precarious. They only do their one small, narrow job, for money and nothing else. Everything else they pay for. They don’t even trade or barter; it’s all through money

    Much more resilient is “home” as “homestead”, sustaining most of life on site, producing some stuff for trade. It’s an old fashioned notion.

  33. “Question of the Day: What Can The People of the Gun Learn from Puerto Rico?”

    1) you can’t use them against a hurricane
    2) if you use them against your neighbors who need a job, you might not wind up with so many POS liberal aholes in your government that (fail to even rise to the level of) worthless and clueless in times you really need them to be handy.

  34. Not sure what this has to do about guns, but I’ll take a swing. It’s time to cut Puerto Rico loose. Why are we still supporting a Caribbean colony we picked up at the post Spanish-American war rummage sale?

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