Hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico has no power and no gas. It also has crumbling infrastructure and near-worthless utility bonds following bankruptcy.
Today it faces another disaster: The 90-year old Guajataca River dam is failing in the wake of 15 inches of rain from Hurricane Maria.
USA Today reports Threat of ‘imminent’ dam collapse in Puerto Rico triggers evacuation of 70K residents
The Guajataca Dam, completed in 1927 and last inspected in October 2013, is maintained by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, according to a 2016 report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is a hydroelectric dam, 120 feet high, holding water from the Guajataca River in Teranova County.
The 345-yard dam holds back a man-made lake covering about 2 square miles, U.S. government records show.
The NWS first learned of a “contained breach” during a Friday afternoon inspection. The Puerto Rican government confirmed it is more than a fissure, and concluded that the dam was actually failing.
The weather service in San Juan said it has been running various “dam break scenarios” because of the pressure on the structure from the heavy rains brought by Hurricane Maria.
“Results indicate that a full breach would result in large peak flows that would reach the coast in under 12 hours,” the weather service said. “Flood extent mapping of these scenarios keep flows largely within the canyon river channel.”
If the dam does break there will be massive flooding and everything in its wake will be destroyed by a wall of water.
Then there will be no water and no electricity.
Don’t worry Puerto Rico, New York Fed president William Dudley says Hurricane Effect will Provide Long Run “Economic Benefits”.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
TRILLIONS for bullshit wars, bullshit banks, and bullshit criminals.
The only question is, after the PUMP, when comes the DUMP ?
You should really read the article before commenting…
“The Guajataca Dam, completed in 1927 and last inspected in October 2013, is maintained by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority…”
Plenty of money for insane pensions.
No money for infrastructure
It is a hard lesson.
“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”
— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack.
The achievements of the 20th century beginning to fall apart in Puerto Rico. Moving back to the 19th century before electricity and clean water systems. The US will be heading in that direction too.
Then I gotta go see a man about a horse. No, a real horse.
Just like the Berlin Wall…..
The “achievements” if the 20th century, rarely extended beyond, at gunpoint; forcing millions to pay up for monuments to central planning, like this dam, and the above wall. Looks kind of cool from above perhaps, but was never more than shining monuments to large scale graft and tyranny.
Once people were corralled, and their power and water needs “organized” by the tyrants; the less glamorous day to day operation and upkeep of the charade, was/is inevitably shortchanged. While those on the inside focus their energies on the much more lucrative art of squeezing as much as possible in pensions and other loot, from their tacit association with these supposedly great “achievements.”
Rome ended the same way. And the Soviets. No doubt the regime(s) behind the Great Wall. And now, predictably and, honestly, thank goodness; so will the progressive regimes that ruined the West.
–> “The achievements of the 20th century beginning to fall apart in Puerto Rico. Moving back to the 19th century before electricity and clean water systems. The US will be heading in that direction too.”
That is socialism in a nutshell.
The more the criminals in US government make Chicago or DC resemble Venezuela, they more the results look the same,
Socialist Puerto Rico and socialist Chicago are on the forefront of the suffering and lowered standards of living that everyone should expect from socialism
what should we expect from “capitalism”, fraud upon fraud upon fraud?
Don’t worry Puerto Rico, New York Fed president William Dudley says Hurricane Effect will Provide Long Run “Economic Benefits”. Mish
The “broken window theory” would be ludicrous IF we had an ethical economic system BUT WE DON’T so don’t be surprised if it does do a lot of good, e.g. many people are living in much better homes after Hurricane Katrina than before.
It’s sad that we must learn (again!) the hard way that real resource limitations are the limiting factor – not mere monetary tokens. Of course those in favor of a gold standard hate that fact and would re-enslave us to a shiny metal while people suffer unnecessarily.
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
Building the wall is way more important! The western world is decaying faster than the Roman Empire, we spend way more for tools of destruction than for tools to build.we love manufactured garbage and pay no attention to nature, even our daily language belongs in the gutter.The assembly line never produced an Einstein or a Picasso.
Just a FYI
Defense Spending is 15% of the Federal Budget
Entitlement Spending is 62% of the Federal Budget
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:CBO_Infographic_2016.png
Welfare for the rich (e.g. the government privileged credit cartel) eventually requires welfare for many more.
But blame the victims, huh. Some thought that requires.
May you soon need assistance yourself.
“even our daily language belongs in the gutter.”
Great line.
Frequency of profanity increasing & average word length decreasing are signs of degradation in society and education.
That’s “racist”.
It’s called cultural identity.
“The pejorative term ‘political correctness’ was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe”
——Judith Martin
Americans were never politically correct since they told the UK to **** *** , which was not very polite. What they are is of a strong moral. Modern US political correctness is just a sad emulation, but I suppose imitation is the most sincere form of flattery . Now exactly who the US is emulating and why the UK is joining in by emulating the US is another question. I think there is an invisible idealist eutopia that exists somewhere that intercepts msm transmissions and academic dialogue, then to be served to politicians for breakfast as a social laxative.
Too ******* right, bunch of ******* pc high marx tossers cramming how not to insult ******* flowers on tuesdays into kindergarten story time. *****!
Unemployed Puerto Rican welfare bums can volunteer to rebuild that dam with shovels. It won’t be rebuilt any other way. Puerto Rico has no money, no credit, no gasoline, no equipment, and no sympathy.
Socialists doing work? That’s hilarious. They will just mope around and blame everyone else for their failed policies.
Socialism ruined Puerto Rico just like it ruined Venezuela and just like it is ruining Chicago.
Same garbage in, same garbage out.
Here is an idea: the FED will still be buying bonds even as it reduces it’s balance sheet. How about buying Puerto Rican bonds. They could be called Freedom bonds.
The dam was designed and building started in 1919. It is strictly an earthen style dam almost a hundred years old. Contrary to popular opinion, dams have useful life spans depending on their construction and siting. It would be expected that this dam is near the end of its useful life and likely to fail. Given that it may not have been designed for the amount of rain delivered by Hurricane Maria, we should not be surprised to see it close to failure. The river is only some 25 miles in length less the length of the man made lake. Should it fail then those who were foolish enough to build in that flood zone have no one but themselves and the government to blame.
Government. It is one area they should interfere. Ban building where it’s dumb to do so and enforce it.
Ban stupidity?
How about we just ban rewarding or protecting stupidity?
Considering it was the Puerto Rico legislature who authorized and funded the dam back 1919, makes one wonder where we would be today if Teddy hadn’t charged up that hill.
But there’s money to be made (re-)building on vulnerable and questionable sites.
Unrelated: Do you wonder why the Texas Land Commissioner is one George P. Bush?
between south texas.PR,the keys,you’re north of a trillion (all borrowed/printed),PR will need to razed and rebuilt,same with most of harris county (eventually),so mays as well the bullitt and blow a massive hole in the already monster deficits that just keep rippin higher,and trump talkin bout tax cuts (lol)talk bout bein in denial omg
The_Fish,
“Government. It is one area they should interfere. Ban building where it’s dumb to do so and enforce it.”
=> Maybe.
When I lived in Tsukisamu and Maruyama (suburbs of Sapporo, Japan) there were _very_ obvious flood plains on either side of the rivers. Those flood plains housed various athletic fields (soccer & baseball as I recall) plus hike & bike paths, concessionaires, and ticket booths.
All knew during the next (river) flood the structures in those areas would be washed away, but it seemed (and still seems) like a good use for otherwise “useless” real estate.
I suspect (but did not at the time, verify) financing would be unavailable for the construction of more permanent structures … (perhaps due to government mandate, or) ’cause folk there were smart enough to realize they’d lose their investment (floods, earthquakes, taifun, tsunami, & such natural disasters play a large part in Japanese history … and in my experience, no one who lived in Japan was unaware of the risks).
Kiisu
What about volcanoes and nuclear power plants?
Temporary buildings/utility could be a good use.
F Puerto Rico.
They created their own problems. Let them find their own solutions.
F Venezuela. F Puerto Rico. F Chicago. And if they continue voting for Bernie, F Vermont too.
Socialism always runs out of other people’s money and then starts causing economic suffering… and this time is no different.
Best thing the US can do is nothing. Let PR learn from their socialist mistakes. Worst thing would be another socialist bailout. That didn’t help Soviet companies. Didn’t help Government Motors. Didn’t help big banks who now depend on Fed handouts for their daily bonuses.
Socialism causes economic suffering, everywhere. Not just Puerto Rico or Venezuela
As 2banana says “62% of government spending is entitlements”. Just eliminate social security and Medicare payments. That should free up lots of money to rebuild Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida. It should pay for that beautiful wall too.
“Just elimi…”
There is a big space between the J and the T , whose convictions tend to follow money rather than hard work.
I am a big believer in hard work, continual improvement in your skills, and applying those skills.
I understood that… but if you try to remove welfare, well basically you won’t make it to office. I studied to some depth the introduction of new liberal policy in the UK, starting turn of last century. At the time taxes and spending were very low. Those responsible had to coerce in changes of law that stopped upper house budgetary vetoes, then set to work on increasing the welfare budget and taxation. It never rolls back, privatisations provided some relief to accounts at times, private credit at other times …but it just does not roll back, so governments are now spending what…30 or 40 or 50 % of GDP. There is a point where that fails in real world , with a whimper or a bang, because of politics or society or demographics etc…. but I cannot think of any time a population freely voted in anything more than temporary trivial adjustment. Maybe there is a fair path to some other structure…I don’t see it though…even the idea of a highly productive technological solution I find surreal at one level or another into the medium term. Bluntly people mess up, if you train them all so they don’t, they mess up all together in a way you didn’t train them for. Maybe that is just the nature of evolution, two steps forward one back, and occasionally five forwards or five back. I’m not pessimistic, I find it fascinating, but it is easy to be deceived also, especially when you look at the fine detail or very macro in historic terms…some things just don’t change, or barely so, over centuries.
I understand all your points and they are all sensible. I was not serious about eliminating social security or Medicare. I merely was pointing out that there are a lot of areas that governments spend on, and they are all important to different groups of people. One person says cut A, while the next person says cut B. There are no easy answers to complex problems.
Puerto Rico looks more like Haiti now. Wonder if it will ever fully recover.
PR has been run exactly like Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela… and its facing the same results.
Socialism kills a lot more people than hurricanes
more than “capitalism” kills?
It was the lunatic Woodrow Wilson who gave the Puerts residency/citizenship rights to provide bodies for his proposed entry into Europe’s war.
Maybe now PR will embrace fiscal conservatism in their personal and government lives. But THEY have to be the ones to decide this, not the US gov’t or economic “experts”
These dams are failing not only due to a lack of maintenance but also from a lack of proper design (often lacking prior to the nuclear age).
Atomic power plants in the U.S.A. had design requirements for their containment domes to survive multiple creditable disasters at the same time. All had to survive a Boeing 707 crashing into the dome as well as other things at the same time. For California that included the largest creditable earthquake. For others it was a huricane or tornedo or flood or all three.
The idea was that dangers can happen at the same time.
These dams were subject to multiple storms and record rains in a very short period of time.
‘spose nothing to stop later renovation to higher standards…’xcept once those responsible for the original construction are no longer around to be responsible, it is easier to avoid that expense as “they didn’t build it”.
Socialism kills again… still.
Billions for bureaucrat pensions. Billions for welfare. Taxes for the productive. Neglect for infrastructure. Puerto Rico is run like Chavez’s Venezuela.
Same moronic socialist policies (even if PR tries to spin them)… and the same outcome.
ZERO sympathy for these socialists. This latest hurricane might have exposed the underlying rot of socialism, but the rot and decay have been building for decades.