Arizona Utility Sending Crews To Puerto Rico

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By ASSOCIATED PRESS • 9 HOURS AGO

... Just 55 percent of the island's nearly 1.5 million customers have power.

http://knau.org/post/arizona-utility-sending-crews-puerto-rico

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1. Central Florida lawmakers frustrated as Puerto Rican evacuees arrive daily

By Monivette Cordeiro

More than 100 days after Hurricane Maria's apocalyptic winds tore through Puerto Rico leaving floods, collapsed houses and bodies in its wake, the island remains shrouded in darkness.

Half of the 3.4 million U.S. citizens in the American territory are living without power, three months after Maria made landfall on Sept. 20 and destroyed the island's electrical grid – and many will likely remain that way until May, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In the most dire cases, no electricity means no access to clean drinking water, no schools, no jobs, no medicine – no hope that things will return to normal anytime soon. As Puerto Rico's situation continues to deteriorate, hundreds of thousands of people have escaped to Florida for a respite from the despair.

Instead, they've fled headfirst into our state's dreadful affordable housing crisis.

The Orlando metro area ranks third in the nation for its lack of affordable rentals, with 18 affordable units available for every 100 extremely low-income families, according to a National Low Income Housing Coalition study. Local officials and nonprofits have been scrambling to accommodate evacuees who haven't been able to stay with family members, getting them into hotels and temporary lodgings as they wait for relief. As of last Thursday, 283,000 people had arrived in Florida from Puerto Rico through airports in Orlando, Tampa and Miami, according to the state division of emergency management ...

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/central-florida-lawmakers-are-frustrated-over-the-lack-of-housing-as-puerto-rican-evacuees-arrive-in-orlando-daily/Content?oid=9803438

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2. Numbers of hurricane refugees entering Connecticut growing

By Mark Davis, News 8 Chief Capitol Correspondent
Published: January 3, 2018, 10:38 am
Updated: January 3, 2018, 6:34 pm

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH)– The state’s five “help centers” for Puerto Rican and other Caribbean island hurricane refugees are receiving hundreds of requests for help each week. The Centers are located in New Haven, Hartford, Waterbury, New Britain and Bridgeport. Nearly 2,000 new kids have been enrolled in Connecticut schools and more are expected in the weeks ahead ...

http://wtnh.com/2018/01/03/thousands-of-kids-from-puerto-rico-enroll-in-connecticut-schools/

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3. Hurricane damage in Puerto Rico is impacting hospitals in metro Detroit

Kim Russell
5:30 PM, Jan 3, 2018
3 hours ago

... “This is what we cannot get,” said Annet Karageanes, as she held a small I.V. fluid bag in her hand. “These these little bags of solution to administer the drugs.”

Karageanes works to make sure the Beaumont Health System has the pharmacy supplies it needs. Beaumont, along with 70% of hospitals across the entire United States, uses IV solution bags manufactured in Puerto Rico.

She showed us the Beaumont Health System’s supply warehouse in Warren, which helped Beaumont react to this major problem nationwide. Smaller hospitals without such a warehouse would have trouble ordering direct from various manufacturers without such a space. It would make getting replacement supplies more challenging. She pointed to a row of boxes where IV solution bags are stored. Normally it would be completely filled, but there gaps of space because supply is low.

“It is a crisis, it really is,” said Karageanes ...

https://www.wxyz.com/news/region/macomb-county/hurricane-damage-in-puerto-rico-is-impacting-hospitals-in-metro-detroit

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4. CT senators vow to fight for more aid for Puerto Rico

By: ANA RADELAT
January 3, 2018

... To Democrats like Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, who returned to Washington after a two-day trip to the island, and to many Puerto Ricans and their advocates, the response has been pathetic.

“If this were happening in Connecticut, there would be riots in the streets,” Murphy said.

In October, Congress approved a $36.5 billion disaster relief package that included aid for Puerto Rico along with help for Texas, Florida and other states battered by last summer’s hurricanes, as well as funding for California’s wildfire recovery efforts.

But Blumenthal and Murphy are critical that much of that money, including funding for Community Development Block Grants that could be used in many ways for reconstruction, have yet to reach Puerto Rico ...

https://ctmirror.org/2018/01/03/ct-senators-vow-to-fight-for-more-aid-for-puerto-rico/

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5. K&R