I have followed this event as closely as I could as a reader of reputable news articles and video clips from the journalists who do a great job. I look for hope that those who were so severely affected by Maria do get a better quality of life -- quickly -- quicker than the efforts of the current administration in the White House. I saw an article where women leaders in Puerto Rico have put their skills to work, shipping containers for housing ... food from garden/farms ... clothing. Maria was a harrowing event. I hope that Puerto Rico does well in spite of the current administration in the White House. I believe that sooner or later, the tables will turn ... I want Puerto Rico to succeed. My humble but special wish for Puerto Rico.

Let's face reality the homes of these people were pretty terrible before the storm and that FEMA gave them anything at all, they should be grateful. Whatever will give them will never be enough.

njglea is right. And after the money is spent on the border concentration camps to lock up the families, I'm sure a demand will be made to pay for the great Wall by the great failure of a human being that is destroying our country. Trump will take us all down as far as he can as he goes down from his traitorous bargains with the Russians. What a horrendous individual he is. Words do not begin to speak to his subhuman personality traits. His lack of intellect or efficacy; no sliver of decency or humanity.

While this is tragic, I don't get any sense of self initiative or agency from these people. They have literally sat around on their hands for a YEAR in conditions like this and apparently have no agency or power of their own to do anything? Sorry but I don't buy that. You can't sit around and wait for the government to magically help you - you have to at least try and help yourself. Other comments here about this being beyond the scope of FEMA's mission are on point - this is usually what homeowner's insurance is for, but in a setting like this that is best described as 2nd-world, is best suited to private charity (Habitat for Humanity - hello?) to step up and help make things right (with cooperation from the locals). Given the dysfunctional local leadership, I don't think any amount of money could magically fix things without at least some sweat equity from the local population.

This sounds so familiar. After Katrina, FEMA was slow in getting on top of things. People had to wait and the bureaucracy was unbelievable. Maybe FEMA should be investigated and/or modernized. Storms are getting worse every year. The billions of dollars spent on the military, on the other side of the world, to keep us ”safe” would be better spent on keeping us safe at home. Safe after a natural catastrophe or an infrastructure misshap. Not to mention, money needed to keep us healthy so we can catch up with the rest of the worl when it comes to Life expectancy, infant mortality rate, education etc.

I just came from a short vacation in a small town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. While I was there, I talked to an older local woman whose husband suddenly passed away about a year and a half ago. He had started renovating their house when he suffered a fatal heart attack. The house needed work to be habitable -- and the people in that community came together, and worked with their own hands for free to finish the job -- so the widow could remain in her home. I just wonder, is anything like that happening in PR? Whenever a natural disaster strikes, ultimately, it takes the affected community to find a way to rebuild. Sure, they need resources, such as building materials or engineering expertise -- and we should help with that -- but there also has to be an effort to mobilize volunteer labor. People need to take some things into their own hands. As the old saying goes, "God helps those who help themselves."

In 2013, The Economist published "Greece in the Carribean" Stuck with a real debt crisis in its back yard, America can learn from Europe’s Aegean follies "Like Greece, Puerto Rico is a chronically uncompetitive place locked in a currency union with a richer, more productive neighbour. The island’s economy is also dominated by a vast, inefficient near-Athenian public sector. " And the article noted "For decades Puerto Rico has been sustained by federal subsidies. Its people, far poorer than the American average, get lots of transfers, from pensions to food stamps." https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/10/26/greece-in-the-caribbean America learned nothing. Poverty continued unabated - under a Democratic administration, to boot.

Has anyone been to Louisiana lately? FEMA has rarely done an adequate job in the aftermath of large scale events. It is a money laundering entity for donors.

Disaster relief is never about addressing poverty. There or on the mainland. FEMA must go by regulations and other legislation. What happens is always a cycle of "no one's getting help!" then spigots open wider then followed by "fraud!" So all our systems are about getting people back to where they were and preventing fraud. Wait for the news articles on all the fraud and waste to follow.

Maybe PR should vote to become a state, pay federal tax and then demand more federal money. You cant just be citizen just by name . You have to contribute. Its like the biological father who had a child but was never there and the stepdad provided for the child. the biological is father only in name I have no problem helping anyone, but just giving PR money without an economic engine in place will leave this island always having to need a hand out. Training, school, etc...

This situation is a tragedy, but the article mentions in only the second to last paragraph that Puerto Rico is getting $20 BILLION (only $9.7 B has been allocated so far) to help recover. That's twice what Texas is getting. FEMA's job is not to rebuild homes, just make life tolerable while the CDBG-DR (Disaster Recovery) program run by HUD provides long-term disaster recovery. The readers of this paper would be better served if the article described the actual process by which disaster response and recovery works and analyze how that process is not meeting the needs of the residents of Puerto Rico

"FEMA set aside billions" - says it all. Want to guess where the money went?

Not surprised at the racists, classists comments of many of the commentors, nor am I surprised at the negligence and complete incompetence of FEMA. These are dark days for people of color in this country (and if you think color and economic status have nothing to do with each other - that is your privilege talking). #45 did not even know that Puerto Rico was a part of the United States. When everyone with experience and compassion is fired, you get paper towels thrown at you for help with the water.

FEMA is comprised of clipboard jockeys, cube dwellers and bureaucrats - something like 18,00 of them. FEMA administers programs, logistics and money. FEMA is wholly dependent on competent local government and the military to actually get things done. Just as was the case in New Orleans, incompetent local government is the failure.

Maybe the NY Times article on funds taken from FEMA and given to ICE might explain some of this. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/us/politics/fema-ice-immigration-dete...

I have been responsible for disaster recoveries when I worked in Carter White House. Recovery doesn't work when the state and local government are not behind it 100%. It is not just up to the Feds. And, no one wants to look at how miserable and unresponsive the Puerto Rican government has been for generations. Look at the poverty, state of infrastructure. You cannot blame that on the feds. The fact is the Puerto Rican people have never held their own government responsible for advancing their population and "state" for generations. When your start from zero it is hard to improve to 100%. Let's be frank, it is not racist or discriminatory to stay the Puerto Rican leaders have failed their people over and over gain.

We need more reporting like this - followups on the major stories after the acute part of the disaster is over. The disaster continues of course for those left behind with damaged homes and damaged lives, but no one on the mainland will notice unless we the media covers it. While cable drones on about the stories of the day, it is up to the long-form journalists to keep the spotlight on the administration's continuing inept and inadequate response. The fact that Trump is crowing the "unsung success" of the Maria recovery makes it crucial.

"The $1.6 billion the agency allocated for direct emergency home repairs will be one of the largest housing programs the federal government has ever attempted. FEMA spent another $1.4 billion on grants to homeowners to repair or rebuild their homes and help them pay for temporary lodging." That is $ 3 billion of US tax payers money. To an island whose residents do NOT pay Federal Income tax. When you pay taxes to the Federal government, you are entitled to get help from the Federal government. If you do not pay taxes to Federal government you are not. Puerto Rico got more than its fair share

Forty years ago when I lived on the next island PR was an unmitigated disaster. Public utility were sporadic, un-managed and un-maintained and the responsible officials looted every mainland dollar that arrived. That tradition continued to the present. When Sandy struck little more than fifty percent of any infrastructure was operable. FEMA had nothing to re-build, they had to start from scratch. The PR government took years ruining their fantastic island and people, Sandy just finished it off. Desperation cast at FEMA can only go so far.

These people are Americans, even if they don't vote. We need to do better. This is shameful.

When does personal responsibility and a work ethic come into play for Puerto Rico residents? Or do they expect the federal government to build them new homes and spend endlessly to make their lives whole again? Remember, Puerto Ricans pay absolutely no federal income tax on their earnings. They voted to reject statehood because they did not want that responsibility as American citizens.Their own government went bankrupt, hundreds of officials were proven to have been corrupt, and their public energy and road infrastructure was already falling apart before the hurricane. Now they expect the rest of us to put up our hard earned taxes to bail them out. I don't believe that many Americans on the mainland are shedding any tears for the self imposed plight of Puerto Rico.

This is an amazing photo journalistic article. Kudos to the Times for continuing to cover this disaster. Heart rendering photos,. words are not even needed...this is a stain on the United States that we are not helping these people in such dire straits.

While I believe the administration's response to Hurricane Maria's devastation on Puerto Rico is woefully inept, I must say as a Hurricane Katrina survivor that reconstruction efforts can take years, with remnants of the hurricane still visible some 13 years later. It took us 5 years to get back into our house. Luckily we owned it outright, had other resources and steady paychecks, and were able to rent an apartment in the meantime. I know many people who suffered much worse, having to pay rent and their mortgages, losing their jobs and pay, all the while fighting insurance companies and FEMA and the SBA, and the city and the state programs. It was a nightmare I would not wish on anyone. I know what our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico are going through, but I'm sure it's much worse with such a poor response from our government.

Looking at these pictures, one can't ignore knowing that, were these American citizens not been Boricua, they'd have been taken care of decently and speedily. We now know that the Trump administration has been shifting funds it has freed from canceling programs from the various departments and into ICE and the border patrol in order to finance the kidnapping and warehousing of children it separated from their parents at the border or apprehended in the states they lived in. This administration has been using white supremacist tactics in the name of the people. Where are the protests? Social media, surely, can't do! --- The Things Trump (and his cabinet) Did While You Weren't Looking https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2ZW

Some of the money is being used to build concentration camps for immigrants and pay the operatives who are arresting them and locking them up. Sick.

It started with Katrina, I think. FEMA found itself cast as the house and infrastructure rebuilder, an entity that is supposed to be able to do the equivalent of nation building. That is not its role, had never been its role. Its mission is to be like a glorified Red Cross, helping supposedly competent local government agencies get prepared, providing limited support for, again, supposedly competent local government agencies afterward. It doesn't rebuilt houses for those who have no insurance. It doesn't rebuild roads and the power grid. FEMA is getting a bad rap because people are expecting it to do things it was never intended to do and isn't geared up to do.

The response was very underwhelming by FEMA but the recovery efforts should fall on local governance and homeowners. FEMA should not be expected to rebuild the lost property.

Not sure which disaster is worse, the aftermath of the hurricane, or Trump's feeble attempts at giving relief to the victims, then bragging about it...oh, wait, the latter is worse...much worse. But, hey, he DID toss paper towels, so there's that. These American citizens, if they have the wherewithal, should pack up and move to Florida, register to vote, show up at the polls on November 6th, and remind The Temporary White House Occupant and his inept minions how poorly the performed when these people needed them most.

FEMA provides trailers in the US for temporary housing. In Puerto Rico, nothing. Given the scope of the problem, I have to believe that architectural schools in the US could design environmentally appropriate (for hot and humid conditions) and inexpensive pre-fab housing that could be shipped and installed at a reasonable cost. Instead, we spend billions on bureaucracy. We need to stop pointing fingers and deal with this problem. Puerto Rican's are Americans. We as a county need to grow up and take responsibility.

One issse may be that Puerto Rico is not a US state. Because of this, only Puerto Rican residents who are government employees, and those with income sources outside of the territory, pay federal income tax. All other employers and employees pay no federal income taxes. This may be an undisclosed factor in the Federal response.

In part, that may be because houses are more expensive to rebuild in Texas. “The cost of repairs, insurance, there are many factors,” said Daniel Llargués, a spokesman for FEMA. There it is in big and bold letters......that is just plain untrue with regards to Puerto Rico and the USVI. The FEMA spokesman is not very accurate. Look at the houses in the NYT pictures accompanying this article. Though there are people living in "shanty" houses, most of the houses are made of concrete and cinder blocks. The typical US-woodframed houses are not made in the islands because they cannot withstand the elements and the storms over long periods of time. Cinder block houses are more expensive to build and the roofs are extremely expensive to repair. Plus the fact that the islands are not geograhically connected to the CONUS means that building supplies must be shipped in leading to approximately 30% higher prices for building supplies. Since the FEMA folks blame the remoteness of the islands as an excuse for their slow response, why couldn't they deduce that the remoteness of the islands will increase the prices of shipping building material and of home repair?

Hmm, Go talk to the tens of thousands in NY and NJ that had homes damaged/destroyed during Hurricane Sandy. Visit the south shore of Long Island, It has taken up to 5 years for people to get assistance. FEMA lowballed payments, insurance companies response was criminal, politicians (Schumer, Cuomo) kept making false promises. NY Rising was a joke. Good luck PR.

It seems that FEMA is doing the job it was designed for, managing emergencies. Puerto Rico's problem (exposed by Maria) is extensive poverty (which is not within FEMA's mandate).

As someone who has relatives in the island, I can tell you home repair programs were a sham. FEMA programs: Rental Repair Program for Landlords: FEMA claimed it would repair rental property in exchange for allowing displaced hurricane victims live in the repaired properties for a specific length of time. FEMA ACTUAL RESPONSE: Some college kids came to inspect the properties, took pictures then and provided no input. And then FEMA ended the program though there are people who have been rendered homeless or are living in "condemned houses" Emergency Home Repair Programs: was suppose to help poverty--stricken or poorly insured homeowners repair major structural damage. FEMA ACTUAL RESPONSE: Homeowners waited months and when FEMA contractors finally came, the extent of the repair was putting blue TARPs on the roofs. What makes it worse is that many residents did the right thing by paying insurance. However, the truly under reported story has been the widespread insurance fraud. Many residents are battling with insurance companies that are offering settlements insufficient to pay for damages. One major bank that provided insurance for houses with mortgages was taking the money but not paying the premiums. Hence FEMA responses or lack thereof is yet another insult to the already victimized residents of Puerto Rico and the USVI. FEMA was truly their last and only hope. SHAMEFUL!!!

These are not white people with buckets of money and pound-for-pound influence and global connections to even more power. That's the mirror we refuse to look into with all our might. Race card? Yep, you betcha. Because that's the reality.

This is incredibly depressing and upsetting. I would like to see a side-by-side comparison with the status of homes damaged by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. It would be very telling to know if FEMA has served that community better than Puerto Rico.