Workers from Montana-based Whitefish Energy Holdings help fix Puerto Rico’s power grid. Photograph: Alvin Baez/Reuters

CLICK HERE - NPR - Here's What's In That $300 Million Whitefish Contract

Multiple congressional committees seek information on $300m deal awarded to Whitefish Energy Holdings, tiny company in interior secretary’s hometown

theguardian.com - October 26, 2017

Multiple congressional committees are investigating a $300m contract awarded to a small Montana company in the hometown of the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, that was tapped to help restore Puerto Rico’s damaged power grid.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority awarded the contract to tiny Whitefish Energy Holdings to restore transmission and distribution lines damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Maria. The two-year-old company had just two full-time employees when the storm hit last month.

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Members of the Wyoming Hot Shots firefighting crew battling the Lizard Fire near Willcox, Ariz., in June. Credit Kyle Miller/Wyoming Hot Shots, via Associated Press

CLICK HERE - U.S. GAO - CLIMATE CHANGE: Information on Potential Economic Effects Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure

nytimes.com - by Lisa Friedman - October 23, 2017

WASHINGTON — Fires, floods and hurricanes are already costing the federal government tens of billions of dollars a year and climate change will drive those costs ever higher in coming years, a new federal study warns.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s auditing arm, urges the Trump administration to take climate change risks seriously and begin formulating a response.

The study, scheduled to be released Tuesday, says that different sectors of the economy and different parts of the country will be harmed in ways that are difficult to predict.

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In Dominica, UNICEF is helping children cope with the devastation of Hurricane Maria through play activities and storytelling - Jacqueline Charles

miamiherald.com - by Harika Rayala and Jacqueline Charles - October 17, 2017

 . . . Recognizing that the trauma from Irma and Maria’s one-two punch is creating a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness among survivors, shelter managers and mental health experts in Antigua and Dominica are on a mission to help people cope with the stress and anxiety. But in a region where mental health awareness is just gaining traction, giving that sort of support isn’t easy.

“If we don’t deal with the mental health issue, the psychological first aid … than we are in trouble,” said Wendel De Leon, a behavioral therapist who recently led a team of therapists from Trinidad and Tobago into Dominica.

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Flood damaged debris piled outside of homes in Port Arthur Texas. The city saw 47 inches of rain during the storm. - Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune

texastribune.org - by Brandon Formby - October 2, 2017

 . . . state lawmakers were told that Housing and Urban Development disaster relief funds, which includes money for extensive home repairs or rebuilds, could take seven to 32 months to work their way through bureaucratic processes and several layers of government agencies . . . Congress approved $7.4 billion in HUD disaster relief funds last month. But that may have to be shared with Florida and Puerto Rico, which have each been hit by hurricanes in the weeks after Harvey battered Texas, unless legislators approve another aid package . . .

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Image: A car passes among dark homes as people wait for electricity to be restored after Hurricane Maria passed through in Utuado, Puerto Rico.JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

wired.com - Adam Rogers - October 10th 2017

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Maria tore through the Caribbean, Puerto Rico is still mostly an island deleted from the present and pushed back a century or so—with little clean water, little electric power, and almost no telecommunications. For telecom, the biggest problem is the lack of power, because most of the island’s transmission lines were knocked out. “We have to reconstruct the power grid as if we were dropping into the middle of the desert and starting from scratch,” says Luis Romero, vice president of the Puerto Rico Telecommunications Alliance.

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trunzwatersystems.com

Drinking water and electricity - anywhere and at anytime - from solar and wind power

Trunz Water Systems provides different types of water treatment and desalination systems, depending on the application and water source.

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Dominica's Prime Minister, the Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit will address the Nation on Friday, September 29, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. Tune in for this live broadcast on local radio DBS and KairiFM as well as www.opm.gov.dm or YouTube at: https://youtu.be/GlQlO6VyaLA . You may also view live on Facebook (Roosevelt Skerrit).

https://www.facebook.com/events/149646308969885/?action_history=null

dominicanewsonline.com - September 23, 2017

In words ripe with emotion lamenting that “Eden is broken”, Dominca’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit addressed the UN General Assembly this morning, seemingly intent on drawing the world’s attention to current conditions in Dominica in what he described as a landscape resembling a war zone.

The image he evoked was in direct support of his plea to fellow world leaders to assist the hurricane-ravaged island by lending the rebuilding equipment which would otherwise remain untouched “waiting for a war” and which is so desperately needed for the work of rebuilding the country. Roosevelt asserted that Dominica is indeed that war, to the applause of the floor.

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A LIST OF INFORMATION RESOURCES RELATED TO HURRICANE MARIA - 2017 . . .

CLICK HERE - FEMA - Hurricane Maria Response and Relief Operations Underway

CLICK HERE - Situation Reports - Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA)

CLICK HERE - FEMA - Puerto Rico

CLICK HERE - reliefweb - Hurricane Maria - Sep 2017

CLICK HERE - Humanity Road - Hurricane Maria - 2017

bbc.com - September 20th 2017

Hurricane Maria has knocked out power to the entire island of Puerto Rico, home to 3.5m people, emergency officials have said.

Abner Gómez, head of the disaster management agency, said the hurricane had damaged "everything in its path".

None of the customers of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority had any electricity, he said.

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Image: A street in St. Martin after Hurricane Irma. Residents spoke of a disintegration in law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages. Credit Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

nytimes.com - Azam Ahmed and Kirk Semple - September 10th 2017

At dawn, people began to gather, quietly planning for survival after Hurricane Irma.

They started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance: water, crackers, fruit.

But by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of people, some of them armed, swooped in and took whatever of value was left: electronics, appliances and vehicles.

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