Will Hurricanes Like Hurricane Maria Become More Common in the Future? by Ronald T Richards in MAOPS- Lupine Publishers
I teach physics in Puerto Rico. On 20 September 2017, Hurricane
Maria, a category 4 storm hit the island. I live in Trujillo Alto and my
house was without electricity for 105 days until 3 January 2018.
Today there are several hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto
Rico who do not have electricity and for those who do have power
the system is unstable with frequent blackouts. Hurricane Maria
hitting Puerto Rico was part of a hurricane season that included
massive destruction in Texas and Florida. Unless you have lived
through a similar experience, it is difficult to imagine what Puerto
Rico was like in the weeks after the hurricane. If you did not have
stockpiled in your house food, water, cash, gasoline, propane, or
medicine these things were only available from your neighbors or
in very limited quantities in the few stores that were open. There
was no telephone service and there were very few first responders
to answer your call. For a week and a half after the storm I was a
volunteer with the Municipal Emergency Management Office. The
day after the storm they had no generator and no communication
with the vehicles that left the office. The instruction was return in
3 hours so that we know that you are alive. And it was not only the
lack of telephone service. Radio and television stations were going
off the air. There were no newspapers, Internet, or postal service.
For most people the only connection with the world was an AM
radio operated with batteries. And the radio was filled with hospital
administrators making a desperate plea for a truck load of Diesel.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.