2017 has been a bad year for major hurricanes, and for wildfire. As the year draws to a close, communities around the nation are grappling with the lingering effects of major disasters.
Months after two major hurricane strikes, large parts of Puerto Rico are still without electrical power. The Washington Post had an in-depth multimedia report on December 15 (see: “Sin Luz: Life Without Power,” by Arelis R. Hernandez, Whitney Leaming, and Zoeann Murphy). “Puerto Rico’s apagón, or ‘super blackout,’ is the longest and largest major power outage in U.S. history,” the paper reports. “Without electricity, there is no reliable source of clean water. School is out, indefinitely. Health care is fraught. Small businesses are faltering. The tasks of daily life are both exhausting and dangerous. There is nothing to do but wait, and no one can say when the lights will come back on.”
In Houston, disaster declarations were renewed as hard-hit coastal Texas enters the new year, the Houston Chronicle reported (see: “Abbott extends disaster declaration for Harvey-hit areas,” by Mike Ward). But officials faulted Federal agencies for what they termed inadequate relief efforts, the Corpus Christi Caller Times reported (see: “Commissioner: Harvey a disaster with very little relief from FEMA,” by Tim Acosta). “Nueces County commissioners were incredulous at the figure of 18 people who had qualified for either a trailer or mobile housing unit in all of Nueces County thus far,” the paper reported. “Of those, only one has moved into a trailer, while another is pending. A third is being set up with electricity. Three more are in the process of being installed, officials said.”
“If there is anybody out there listening that believes only 18 people are qualified after that storm and thinks that’s not a colossal screw-up by FEMA, I don’t even know how to address that,” Nueces County Commissioner Brent Chesney said. “Eighteen people — I mean, that’s absurd.”
In California, meanwhile, the so-called “Thomas Fire” continued to burn in the hills near Santa Barbara, and thousands of homes remain at risk of destruction, the Los Angeles Times reported (see: “Powerful winds fan new dangers in Thomas fire: ‘It will be the test to see if we have done everything correct’,” by Nicole Santa Cruz and Alene Tchekmedyian). Firefighters redeployed to burned-over areas to manage “hot spots,” reported member-supported radio station KPCC (see: “Thomas Fire: Hot spots doused as winds whip up,” by Amanda Lee Myers / Associated Press). The lingering fires include natural “oil seeps” in the mountains, ignited by the brush fires, KPCC reported (see: “Oil seeps ignited by Thomas Fire above Ojai still actively, but quietly, burning,” by Kyle Stokes).
