Thursday, September 14, 2017

Puerto Rico financial oversight board hires firm to review debt sales

The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico said on Wednesday it hired investigations firm Kobre & Kim to review the U.S. territory's past debt issuance and how it relates to the current fiscal crisis.
"The Special Committee considers this investigation an integral part of the Board's mission to restore fiscal balance and economic opportunity and to promote Puerto Rico's reentry to the capital markets," the board said in a statement.
The firm was selected after the special committee of the board issued a request for proposal in August.
Puerto Rico, which this year filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. municipal history, is struggling to regain economic stability in the face of a $72 billion debt load, a 45 percent poverty rate and near-insolvent public health and pension systems.
The investigation will review "contributors" to Puerto Rico's crisis and examine the island's debt and issuance, including disclosure and selling practices, the statement said.
By Stephanie Kelly
Puerto Rico financial oversight board hires firm to review debt sales

Without proper oversight, hurricane aid to Puerto Rico can worsen fiscal disaster

Between Hurricane Irma’s path of destruction and the threat of future hurricanes, Puerto Rico stands in Mother Nature’s firing line. The House of Representatives, which passed a bill last week authorizing assistance for Hurricane Harvey, will likely open the spigot of taxpayer funds to Puerto Rico and other areas tormented by recent mega storms. While the federal government is right to come to the financial aid of the oft-forgotten part of the United States after disasters, Congress needs to be especially weary of financial mismanagement. In a place where fiscal dysfunction has already forced the federal government to intervene, adding fuel to the fire would make the lives of Puerto Ricans worse. And taxpayers deserve better than for their money to sink into a black hole of failed expectations. 
Unfortunately, Puerto Rico has a long history of abysmal management. As Puerto Rico’s debt skyrocketed in the seventies and eighties, local economists such as Tosporn Chotigeat warned that a failure to curb government spending could have dire consequences for the next generation.
Things reached a tipping point last year, when Congress passed (and then-President Obama signed into law) the PROMESA Act. This legislation set the stage for federal micromanagement of Puerto Rican affairs, setting up a control board to attempt to cut expenses. As per usual, the federal government made the problem worse; the control board’s so-called austerity plan that went into place actually increased spending by $575 million from the previous year.
Enter the hurricanes. With millions of dollars in damages projected, Puerto Ricans are understandably eager for federal aid. Without oversight, however, even the most sensible hurricane packages morph into reckless, pork-filled endeavors.
Case in point: Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Federal bureaucrats shelled out for half a billion dollar’s worth of mobile homes that were never even used. In total, the New York Times found that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) waste surrounding the storm exceeded $2 billion. And since then, the federal government has hardly cleaned up its act. While Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been repeatedly assailed for claiming that the 2013 relief package for Hurricane Sandy was mostly waste, much of the aid failed to service victims. Of the $50.5 billion dollar package approved in 2013, around $24 billion wasn’t even spent until 2016!
This delay can be justified by pointing to mitigation efforts; common sense dictates that prepping for future disasters upfront can save money over the long-term. But the policy realm is rife with unintended consequences. According to research done by scholars at Texas A&M, Penn State and Ohio State, “Type II” mitigation spending, which includes things like building more resilient infrastructure and strengthening dams and levees, actually leads to more hurricane property losses over the long-run.
This counterintuitive effect happens because of moral hazard; mitigation spending creates a false allure of safety that leads to overbuilding in unsafe areas. Moreover, filing a spending project under “mitigation” opens the door to waste by severing the link between dollars and immediate relief. An infrastructure project that may well have happened anyway can benefit from federal spending if obtained under the guise of a disaster.
Given Puerto Rico’s bloated public sector issues and prior financial problems, opening up the spigot of federal taxpayer dollars without proper oversight will only mask the island’s persistent governance and transparency problems. In 1998, Hurricane George struck Puerto Rico, prompting FEMA to enter into a cost-sharing arrangement with the island’s current administration. Of the $9.7 million in FEMA funds received over the 1998-2003 period for PRASA, the local water authority, an audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found multiple instances of duplicate funding and questionable expenditures. Dubious expenses totaled an astounding $1.6 million.
Acknowledging that the past is often prologue, FEMA Director for the Caribbean, Alejandro de la Campa, has notably reinforced transparency and a strict process for receiving FEMA funding. As with Hurricane George, providing initial funding for future “mitigation” projects will necessitate more local funding down the road, increasing the risk of further debt accumulation. This is a fact that de la Campo himself has acknowledged, recently stating that “New allocations will be needed.”
That’s not to say, of course, that the federal government should leave Puerto Rico to fend for itself. But to prevent another situation like Hurricane George, stringent controls need to accompany any FEMA relief effort. In contrast to the previous effort, costs ought to be documented by project. And, an increased level of auditing would ensure that disaster relief goes to actual victims. Puerto Ricans have a tough road ahead of them, with natural and fiscal calamities knocking on the island’s door. A targeted, federal aid effort can ameliorate Puerto Rico’s ills, without strapping federal and territorial taxpayers with unwanted expenses for years to come.
Congress needs to resist the temptation to use these natural disasters as an opportunity to bail Puerto Rico out of their man-made fiscal disaster.
David Williams is president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

Without proper oversight, hurricane aid to Puerto Rico can worsen fiscal disaster

BY DAVID WILLIAMS
Without proper oversight, hurricane aid to Puerto Rico can worsen fiscal disaster

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Puerto Rico Is Getting Squeezed, and It Will Cost All of Us

he cases of Detroit and Greece are well known:  Economic crises precipitated a crushing debt load and chaos as creditors demanded payment, ordinary citizens got squeezed, and millions of people lost their financial security.
Now, 1,000 miles off the coast of Florida, a small Caribbean island of 3.4 million American citizens is facing its worst economic crisis since coming under U.S. rule in 1898. A lengthy recession and continued emigration have left the government unable to pay its debt, which is expected to exceed 107 percent of its GDP by next year. And while Puerto Rico was spared the worst of Hurricane Irma, the storm killed at least three people, destroyed hundreds of homes, knocked out the power grid, and exposed weak infrastructure. The U.S. Treasury, Congress, the Obama Administration, and other influential institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations all acknowledge that without debt restructuring, Puerto Rico will be unable to reverse the disastrous economic track it is currently on.
Unfortunately, with the government seriously considering a set of austerity measures, the situation could worsen quickly. Last June, the U.S. Congress passed PROMESA (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act), a law intended to enable Puerto Rico to lift itself out of financial crisis. PROMESA authorized the creation of a Fiscal Control Board, a non-elected group tasked with overseeing the restructuring of Puerto Rico’s debt and economy. Earlier this year, the board approved the Puerto Rican government’s fiscal plan for 2017-2026, which included a number of austerity policies designed to slash the government’s budget and free up money for creditors. Among these measures are cuts to pensions, health care, and the University of Puerto Rico.
PROMESA’s own projections estimate a fall in GDP that would lead to another lost decade. Columbia University economists Martin Guzman and Joseph Stiglitz, both INET grantees, have pointed out that while “the PROMESA board was supposed to chart a path to recovery, its plan makes a virtual impossibility.” At this crucial point in Puerto Rico’s history, Guzman, among others, has argued that the key players in Puerto Rico’s future—the PROMESA board, the Puerto Rican government, and the U.S. federal government—must take action to reverse course and foster sustainable economic growth, or face a downward spiral that will further deprive citizens of opportunities in their own land and intensify the migration pressures to the mainland. What’s more, the decisions PROMESA makes—regarding how to balance debt payments and public services, how far to take austerity measures, how transparent to be in its research and decisions—could set a precedent for future debt restructuring in municipalities, states, and sovereign nations worldwide.
Martin Guzman, a leading scholar in the field of public debt crises, recently partnered with the Center for a New Economy in San Juan, Puerto Rico to produce a report that analyzes the consequences of the Fiscal Plan approved by PROMESA’s Fiscal Control Board and to assess the restructuring needs for the island.
Anamaria Lopez: Why should Puerto Rico’s economic problems matter to everyone?
Martin Guzman: The current struggle in Puerto Rico has costs for everyone, both Americans living there and those living in the mainland. Puerto Rico has been in a deep recession that has made debt unsustainable—impossible to pay in full—and has decreased employment and led to fewer opportunities for its population.
Many Puerto Ricans have decided to migrate to the mainland, and the result is that as the recession aggravates, the fiscal revenues of the country decrease and the capacity for repaying debts decreases even more. As Puerto Ricans migrate, there are fewer people working on the island, especially those at the age of full-time work. So the government’s capacity to collect fiscal revenue decreases.
This vicious cycle is referred to in economics as a “destabilizing dynamics.”
The migration has costs for American taxpayers as well. If Puerto Rico’s crisis is not resolved, the economic and social crises, and the resultant migration crisis, are only going to be aggravated. Under the plan that was approved by the fiscal board created by PROMESA, the situation will soon get worse with all probability.
Puerto Rico is going to experience another lost decade in terms of economic activity, leaving even fewer opportunities and affecting the lives of many. Only a few bondholders who will get prioritized for repayment in the short term will benefit. Many creditors will lose as well, as the funds that will be available for future repayment will also decrease if the depression deepens further.
AL: It’s been about a year since the passage of PROMESA. Has it achieved what it set out to do?
MG: Not yet, and if the board doesn’t change its views on what Puerto Rico needs to do in order to get out of debt, PROMESA will actually hurt the island.
In order to help, PROMESA needs to ensure there is a macroeconomic plan in place that is aligned with the goal of economic recovery. What is clear is that if Puerto Rico doesn’t restore the sustainability of its debt position, there will be no economic recovery, and in order to restore debt sustainability there needs to be debt restructuring with a substantial write down—that is, a decrease in the face value—of Puerto Rico’s debt. But so far, it has been silent on the specifics of a debt-restructuring proposal.
Unfortunately the [Fiscal Control] Board approved a fiscal plan for the next decade, 2017–2026, that is not aligned with what Puerto Rico needs to recover. Even the creators of the plan project another lost decade for the country, and they’re being overly optimistic since their projections are based on assumptions that are not sound. They’re underestimating the consequences that the plan will have for the Puerto Rican economy and society.
As long as the board doesn’t settle on a sound macroeconomic plan with a sound debt restructuring proposal, PROMESA will not be fulfilling the role for which it was created.
AL: Are the problems with PROMESA mostly politics or economics? What’s making the process so prolonged?
MG: Debt restructuring of countries is generally a protracted process. Puerto Rico is in a special situation because it’s not a sovereign nation, it’s a U.S. colony, and it did not have a legal framework for restructuring debt until PROMESA was enacted. Restructuring debts without a proper legal framework as a bankruptcy law is generally chaotic. What we see in the sphere of sovereign debtors is that negotiations take too long and are too complex, and when debt relief is finally achieved it’s often too little, too late.
PROMESA offers a legal framework for restructuring debt, but there are multiple creditors with different interests, and the inter-creditor disputes make resolving the situation quite difficult. So we have to understand that the field in which these negotiations occur and the conflicts of interest among creditors matter: This is both an economic and a political problem. Eventually, the PROMESA Fiscal Control Board will have to take a position on whether it’s going to help Puerto Rico and the majority of the creditors, or whether it’s going to defend the interests of some creditors that could gain from a process that squeezes as much as possible from the country but doesn’t lead to economic recovery. 
AL: Is the debt the most pressing issue facing the Puerto Rican people?
MG: Puerto Rico is experiencing three crises at the same time: a social crisis, an economic crisis, and a debt crisis. The debt crisis is the result of the economic crisis, but you cannot solve the social or economic crisis if the debt crisis is not resolved first. What this means is that if Puerto Rico doesn’t receive substantial debt relief that allows for a fresh start, it will not have the resources to implement the macroeconomic and development policies it needs to in order to recover in a sustainable way. That is why the first step has to be the debt restructuring.
AL: What economic impact is continued austerity—the cutting of government services—having on the lives of Puerto Ricans in the short term? Are there potential long-term economic and social consequences as well?
MG: In the short term, austerity aggravates the recession and reduces opportunities. The labor participation rate is already low, about two thirds of what it is in the mainland, the unemployment rate is close to 10 percent, and there have been continued increases in migration. Implementing the fiscal plan that was approved by the PROMESA board would mean more of that and an even deeper recession, especially in 2018 and 2019, and a more vulnerable situation for many— especially those who are already at risk. Cuts in spending in public education would also bode badly for the future. Knowledge is at the center of development, so it’s a bad idea to “save” on the investment in knowledge in a country that is attempting to find a more dynamic path of growth.
AL: You’ve described Puerto Rico as a colony. How does its “commonwealth” status impact the economic destiny of its people? Are they getting a fair deal?
MG: Puerto Rico is indeed a U.S. colony, and as such, it doesn’t have the power or the capacity to make its own decisions. Puerto Rican citizens have to rely on the intentions of a group of non-elected technocrats that will make decisions that will have a significant impact on their lives. This to some extent resembles what happened in Greece: Greece, a sovereign nation, de facto lost its sovereignty in the process of resolving its debt crisis. The Troika got the power and crushed Greece.
Will the Fiscal Board help or hurt Puerto Rico? Puerto Ricans will have to rely on the board’s intentions, which I believe will have political consequences one way or another. If PROMESA plays a positive role and board actually helps Puerto Rico, that can reinforce Puerto Ricans’ belief that there is solidarity between them and the U.S. Otherwise, sentiments could change in the opposite direction.
AL; Do you think Puerto Rico’s debt situation resembles that of other Latin American countries now or in the past? How is it alike or different?
MG: The most famous default in Latin America in the last 15 years was the one from Argentina in 2001. Argentina, like Puerto Rico now, was in a destabilizing macroeconomic dynamic. A recession began in 1998 and eventually evolved into a deep depression, with the unemployment rate going above 20 percent. But while Puerto Ricans can migrate to the U.S. and look for jobs there, Argentinians didn’t have an equivalent option because they didn’t have any other country where they could work legally. So what we saw was a massive increase in unemployment as well as massive social protests, which caused the problem to be addressed faster [there] than it is in Puerto Rico.
Argentina underwent the process of debt restructuring without a proper legal framework, and it was a complex process that lasted for a long time. It had to deal with a group of bondholders—the so-called vulture funds, which specialize in buying debt in situations of distress, much of that debt after default—at a low fraction of its face value. They then litigated, claiming full payment and interest, plus extra interest to compensate for not having been paid on time, even though they bought most of the bonds after the default.
However, Argentina did get substantial relief, so the amount of interest payments decreased significantly. This gave important breathing [room] to the government that was used for expansionary fiscal policies that helped the recovery.
The international context was also different than the one that Puerto Rico faces:  The recovery occurred in the context of a boom in the prices of exports. The recovery that followed the debt restructuring was spectacular, but the lack of legal framework gave rise to vulture funds’ behavior that threatened to undo the entire restructuring process.
Unlike Argentina, Puerto Rico does have a legal framework for restructuring debt, PROMESA, that can be used to prevent chaos arising from potential lawsuits by vulture funds.
Another difference is that Argentina as a sovereign nation could run its own monetary policy, and this was an important element of the recovery that followed the default. Puerto Rico does not have that instrument, so it has to rely on institutional innovations and legal changes that increase the competitiveness of its tradable production.
So ultimately, there are similarities and differences with Argentina that need to be taken into account when designing an appropriate debt-restructuring plan for Puerto Rico. 

Editor’s note: In this Q&A, Martin Guzman, research associate at Columbia University, Professor of Economics at the University of Buenos Aires, and senior non-resident fellow at the Center for a New Economy in San Juan, Puerto Rico, shares with INET his analysis of the crisis in Puerto Rico and what a real recovery would take.

The path of austerity could spread economic pain and social woes far beyond the Caribbean island, says public debt expert Martin Guzman

By Anamaria Lopez
Puerto Rico Is Getting Squeezed, and It Will Cost All of Us

Austerity, Divestment & Irma: Juan González on Why 300,000 in Puerto Rico are Without Power

FEMA Administrator Brock Long is traveling today to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to see firsthand the damage caused by Hurricane Irma. In Puerto Rico, 300,000 remain without power—despite the fact that the island was barely hit by the storm. Authorities have warned parts of Puerto Rico could be without electricity for up to six months, in part due to the island’s economic crisis. We speak with Juan González about how U.S.-imposed austerity and divestment are contributing to the electricity crisis after Irma.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. The FEMA administrator, Brock Long, is traveling today to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands—he just announced this this morning—to see firsthand the damage caused by Hurricane Irma. On the island of Saint John in the Virgin Islands, 80 percent of homes have been severely damaged. Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, 300,000 people remain without power. Authorities have warned parts of Puerto Rico could be without electricity for up to six months, in part due to the island’s economic crisis.
Juan, you’ve been closely covering the situation in Puerto Rico. What does the hurricane have to do with the political crisis in Puerto Rico?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, first of all, I think it’s important to understand that the hurricane didn’t really hit Puerto Rico head-on like it did in Cuba or even in the other Caribbean islands. It basically glanced the island. And yet, many people on the island were stunned to see the—so much electricity go down. As you mentioned, at the beginning, when the hurricane hit, about as many as a million people went without electricity, and about a third of the people lost water, because so many of the pumping stations, water pumping stations, in Puerto Rico depend on the electrical grid for their power source, so that there are hundreds of thousands of people also without water on the island.
And the reality is that the electrical system of Puerto Rico has been in crisis now for decades. And just one example, the electrical company, which is a government-owned electrical company—it’s called PREPA, the Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority—in 2000, had about 7,000 linemen to take care of repairs along the system. Today it has 3,500. Fifty percent of the workforce has been reduced. And so, when even a hurricane like this gets near the island, it creates enormous devastation for the electrical system. And now this has become the basis for the attempts to privatize the electrical system, because the electrical company is the crown jewel of industry in Puerto Rico. Everybody needs electricity, especially in an island that is so hot and humid and is so industrialized, so that there’s been efforts now to try to privatize PREPA.
And, of course, the source of how the electricity is generated in Puerto Rico is critical. One example, 51 percent of all the electricity in Puerto Rico is produced through burning petroleum, compared to less than 1 percent of all the electricity generated in the United States is generated through petroleum. In addition, coal and natural gas—fossil fuels amount for about 98 percent of the generating power of the electrical system in Puerto Rico. Very little wind or solar generation.
So part of the problem is that Puerto Rico has the most expensive way of generating its electricity, and then there’s no investment in the capital infrastructure or in the workforce. So, anything like this, a hurricane like this, immediately creates a crisis that will be for months in order to be repaired.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll continue to follow what’s happening in Puerto Rico. Any final comments? And did you hear—you were born in Ponce, right?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you hear how it was affected?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: It wasn’t affected. In fact, I talked to my sister, who lives in Cayey, in the center of the island. And they said they had—they were surprised how little impact of the actual hurricane was on the island, yet everyone lost electricity.
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Austerity, Divestment & Irma: Juan González on Why 300,000 in Puerto Rico are Without Power

On St. John, ‘it looks like after a volcano erupts,’ visitor says

CRUZ BAY, Virgin Islands — A week after one of the most powerful hurricanes in history ravaged St. John island, nearly every shoot of green — every leaf, every palm frond — has been shorn from this tranquil island’s lush hills, as if winter suddenly came to the tropics.
As Nils Erickson, of Newport, R.I., navigated the winding, newly treacherous road to his three-bedroom home overlooking the turquoise sea Tuesday, his eyes reddened and he struggled to summon the words to capture the scope of the devastation.
“Oh my God,” he said, pointing to the sloping valleys where every tree was barren and every house looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. “This is unreal — unreal.”
With Army Black Hawk helicopters flying above and naval vessels floating offshore, Erickson steered a borrowed Jeep past downed utility lines, overturned cars with shattered windshields, zinc roofs that looked like discarded tin can lids.
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Everywhere was ruins.
“This is bad,” he said. “It looks like after a volcano erupts.”
Earlier in the morning, Erickson was helping organize one of the many volunteer relief efforts from the port town of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, about a three-hour boat ride from St. John.
The 42-year-old sailor, who has kept a home on St. John since 1994, felt a deep despair after watching from afar how Hurricane Irma’s Category 5 winds pummeled this small island of just 20 square miles.
Like many others, he felt compelled to help.
So Erickson went online and began looking for tour operators who might be able to reach the island, and landed on East Island Excursions, an outfit out of Fajardo that normally offers snorkeling outings to tourists. Over the next few days, Erickson, who had flown down from Newport on Friday, donated nearly $20,000 of his own money and worked with the company and others to raise tens of thousands of dollars to help St. John.
Before dawn on Tuesday, Erickson and a group of volunteers began loading several ships with the goods the money had bought — ramen noodles, milk, socks, bug spray, shampoo, dog food, trash bags, generators, shovels, chain saws, and much more.
After a choppy trip across the Caribbean Sea, the tour boat — filled with supplies — pulled into Cruz Harbor on St. John, where about a dozen sailboats, catamarans, and ferries remained washed up on the beach, like scattered bowling pins. Other boats had capsized or sunk in the azure harbor, their masts bobbing in the surf.
Cruz Bay, St. John -- 9/12/2017 - A man clears away a deck of debris left behind by Hurricane Irma in the Cruz Bay section of St. John. (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff) Topic: Reporter:
JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
A man cleared away debris in Cruz Bay.
Around the tour boat, the Coast Guard was racing from the battered dock to four cutters floating just offshore, where they had ferried more than hundred residents of St. John. Many of the evacuees looked as if they had just gone through a war.
As Davida Damron, 38, waited to board one of the Coast Guard’s speedboats with her boyfriend and dog, a pitbull named French Fry, she recounted how fortunate she was. Unlike many of her neighbors, whose homes had been flattened by the storm, hers escaped with little damage.
It was the days after the storm that convinced her to leave. She saw a man in the street wielding a machete, screaming “It’s looting time.”
“That made me nervous,” Damron said before boarding a boat she hoped would lead to a flight to California, where her family lives.
Just up the hill at a newly created homeless shelter at the Julius E. Sprauve School, Navidad Rodriguez was still having nightmares.
Like many others, she watched as all the windows of her house were blown out and her roof sheared off by Irma’s 150-mph winds. Rodriguez, her daughter, and others were forced to hide in a hole behind their home, holding each other through what they thought would be their final moments.
“We were screaming, crying, and we thought it was over,” said Rodriguez, 44, who has since slept on a cot in a school classroom with scores of neighbors who also lost everything. “I still cry every day, even in the night.”
She has no idea where she’ll go or what she’ll do, and she worries about the reports of violence on the island.
Officials have imposed a curfew on the island, banning residents from being outdoors between 6 p.m. and noon. But some have dismissed concerns about looting.
“I’m hearing wild rumors,” said John Covell, the lead coordinator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, shortly after landing on St. John. “I’m hearing that the security is not that bad.”
But signs of looting were not hard to find. In front of the island’s police headquarters, there was a fire-damaged ATM machine and a burned-out safe, which someone had broken into. A few blocks away, the glass door of an insurance company had been shattered by a fire extinguisher.
Evacuees were loaded Tuesday onto a Coast Guard boat at Cruz Bay.
JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
Evacuees were loaded Tuesday onto a Coast Guard boat at Cruz Bay.
Sergeant Rich Dominguez of the Virgin Islands Police Department acknowledged there had been some looting but insisted things had improved over the past few days, as hundreds of National Guardsmen, Coast Guard personnel, the FBI, and others moved in like a small army, landing Humvees to escort bulldozers, surveying the area with drones and V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, and setting up an encampment along the harbor.
Dominguez credited volunteers like Erickson for much of the relief effort.
“This is our own Dunkirk,” he said. “It’s the volunteers who made this happen. They just did it.”
On Tuesday, as Erickson drove along the road to his house, already a challenging route of steep drops and blind curves, he came to a bend in the road where a restaurant had been.
The lime-green walls had fallen. The roof had disappeared. A silver SUV sat on a pile of rubble and broken branches. All that was left standing was a sign that read “Chateaux Bordeaux.”
“This is crazy,” Erickson said.
Up the hill, past several fallen utility poles, he pointed to where a neighbor’s house should have been. “Wow, it’s gone,” he said.
When he finally arrived at his house, it was still standing, one of the few that withstood the fierce winds. Inside, the floors were littered with shattered glass and dirt. The front lawn was a gnarled jungle of wrecked trees.
Several of his windows hadn’t survived the storm, but the bed in his master bedroom somehow remained perfectly made. The only real sign of the devastation that had swept across the island were the dead wasps studding his white comforter.
“I’m very lucky,” he said.
Nils Drickson of Newport, R.I., discovered that he was one of the lucky ones: His home on St. John mostly escaped Irma’s wrath.
JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
Nils Drickson of Newport, R.I., discovered that he was one of the lucky ones: His home on St. John mostly escaped Irma’s wrath.
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.

Editor’s note: Reporter David Abel and photographer Jessica Rinaldi are documenting the recovery effort in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

By 

A woman carried a child and emergency water Tuesday as she passed debris from Hurricane Irma strewn in Cruz Bay, Virgin Islands.

On St. John, ‘it looks like after a volcano erupts,’ visitor says

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Hurricane Irma victims need your helpHurricane Irma victims need your help

At least 36 people were killed when Hurricane Irma tore through a string of islands, including Anguilla, Barbuda, St. Martin, and the US Virgin Islands.
In Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of people lost power.
    The storm damaged or destroyed 95% of the buildings on Barbuda, leaving the Caribbean island barely habitable.
    Hurricane Irma slammed into northern Cuba knocking out electricity, downing trees and damaging buildings.
    The hurricane left more than 5.7 million people without power in Florida. The storm is headed to Georgia and other parts of the south including Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas.
    There are several ways you can help.
    Donate money: Find out more about charities aiding Hurricane Irma victims by clicking on the button below:
    Donate blood: OneBlood, in Florida, is urging people living outside of Hurricane Irma's path to visit their local blood center and donate blood as soon as possible. All blood types are needed, however, there is an urgent need for platelet donations as well as O negative blood.
    Offer a place to stay: If you have housing available for evacuees, you can create a listing on Airbnb's Irma page.
    HomeAway is offering free or discounted rental homes for anyone displaced by the storm. All service fees are waived for those affected by the disaster and checking in between September 11 and October 15.
    Give your time: The American Red Cross and United Way of Miami-Dade are calling for volunteers to help with relief efforts.

    Two men look for belongings in the rubble of their restaurant on the island of St. Martin on September 10.
    By Bethany Hines
    Hurricane Irma victims need your helpHurricane Irma victims need your help

    Puerto Rico ready to rebuild, 'still has the wherewithal to be a tourist destination': Gov. Rossello

    Some parts of Puerto Rico have been "decimated" by Hurricane Irma, but the Caribbean island's tourism industry remains intact, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told CNBC on Monday.
    The storm's eye didn't come ashore but roared past with 185 mph winds. It knocked out power to about 70 percent of the island and killed at least three people, but the island escaped the large-scale devastation seen on nearby Barbuda and St. Martin.
    "The tourism infrastructure is very robust over here. We're lucky that it was very well designed, both the ports, the airports. The hotels over here are working at full capacity," Rossello said in an interview with "Power Lunch."
    "Puerto Rico still has the wherewithal to be a tourist destination."
    Waves crash against the seawall as Hurricane Irma slammed across islands in the northern Caribbean on Wednesday, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico September 6, 2017.
    Alvin Baez | Reuters
    Waves crash against the seawall as Hurricane Irma slammed across islands in the northern Caribbean on Wednesday, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico September 6, 2017.
    The fact that the tourism infrastructure wasn't heavily damaged is good news for the island, which already has about $70 billion in debt on its books and $50 billion in pension liabilities.
    Funds are available for rebuilding, though, Rossello said, and the government is working quickly to fix those areas that have been heavily damaged.
    There is an emergency fund in Puerto Rico, as well as President Donald Trump's emergency declaration that will help pay for storm preparations and some of the damage, he said.
    "Some of the regions in Puerto Rico have already been determined to be a disaster area, so we will work with our funding, of course, but with the help of FEMA to restore balance and to rebuild again in Puerto Rico."
    He said power has already been restored to over 600,000 of the 1 million customers who have been in the dark since the storm hit.
    — Reuters and CNBC's Jason Gewirtz contributed to this report.

    Michelle Fox

    • Some parts of Puerto Rico have been "decimated" by Hurricane Irma, but the tourism industry remains intact, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told CNBC.
    • The fact that the tourism infrastructure wasn't heavily damaged is good news for the economically challenged island.
    • Rossello said there are funds available for rebuilding.
    Puerto Rico ready to rebuild, 'still has the wherewithal to be a tourist destination': Gov. Rossello

    Monday, September 11, 2017

    NYPD, FDNY hurricane-relief workers land in Puerto Rico

    A contingent of New York City first responders ​landed in Puerto Rico on Sunday to help out victims of Hurricane Irma.

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    NY-TF1 is briefed before departing to . The team then will be deployed to the  to assist in  rescue efforts.
    The group, which ​left the Big Apple by bus, flew from an Air Force base in Georgia to San Juan for deployment around the Caribbean, NYPD Deputy Chief Timothy Trainor said.
    “In this time of crisis, we’re here to assist in any way possible, certainly mindful of what other people from outside New York did for the citizens of New York after 9/11, nearly 16 years ago this day,” Trainor said.
    The NYPD sent 39 members of the Finest, including five K-9 cops and their dogs, while the FDNY sent a combination of 40 firefighters and EMT workers.
    They’re scheduled to spend 14 days on relief efforts.
    Puerto Rico was spared the brunt of Irma’s devastating power, but at least 25 people were killed when the storm lashed a series of neighboring islands.
    The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda has said that 95 percent of Barbuda’s buildings were damaged, leaving it “barely habitable,” when the Category 5 hurricane swept through on Wednesday.
    By Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding
    NYPD, FDNY hurricane-relief workers land in Puerto Rico