Septembers Hurricanes Are Over, but the Suffering Isnt Bob Henson

[malaise]

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/septembers-hurricanes-are-over-suffering-isnt
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Torrential rains moving into Puerto Rico

Another disturbance, this one extending across the northeast Caribbean, also remained disorganized on Saturday. NHC gave this disturbance near-zero odds of development in the 2- and 5-day periods. However, as this system drifts west, it is producing pockets of heavy rain across the hurricane-weary northeast Caribbean. A flash flood watch remains in place for Puerto Rico through this weekend, and a flood advisory was in effect for eastern Puerto Rico through 4 pm EDT Saturday. Heavy rains were moving onshore from the east at midday Saturday.

Our next area of concern in the Atlantic will most likely be a broad area of low pressure expected to gradually strengthen next week across the northwest Caribbean, where very high levels of oceanic heat content are in place. Global models, including the 06Z Saturday run of the GFS model and the 12Z Saturday run of the European model, continue to lend support to the idea of a tropical cyclone forming somewhere near western Cuba and moving into the eastern Gulf of Mexico about a week from now.

How you can help

Over the last six weeks, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria have left a mind-numbing trail of destruction across a number of Caribbean islands and several parts of the United States, including Texas, Florida, neighboring states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Insured losses across these affected areas could easily run past $100 billion, and if past storms are any guide, uninsured losses could equal or exceed the insured amounts. For just one point of comparison on the scale of this loss, consider that the entire yearly budget of the U.S. military is around $600 billion.

A vast reconstruction and recovery effort lies ahead for communities and citizens from Dominica to the Florida Keys to Houston. The most urgent crisis now, though, is in Puerto Rico, where the power grid remains out, transportation is severely hobbled, communications are sketchy at best, and many thousands of residents are running low on water and food. It has taken more than a week for federal relief efforts to begin ramping up to a scale commensurate with the unique hurdles posed by Maria’s devastation. A report in the Washington Post lays out some of the factors in this troubling delay, which have uncomfortable echoes of the delayed response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The official death toll in Puerto Rico of 16 is almost certain to rise; we can only hope it will remain far below the horrifying numbers that resulted from Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi. Even if it does, the people of Puerto Rico are dealing with severe hardship on multiple levels—including this weekend’s heavy rains, which will be falling atop countless homes that lack roofs.