WASHINGTON – Federal and military aid for Puerto Rico increased Tuesday, including news that the hospital ship Comfort would be deployed, as officials got a clearer picture of the obscene destruction Hurricane Maria wrought on the U.S. territory.
What federal officials visiting the island have found: Eighty percent of the island’s electrical transmission system – its substations and transmission lines, – and 100 percent of its distribution system was damaged by the storm, said Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
As of Tuesday, only 11 of Puerto Rico’s 69 hospitals had fuel or power, Davis said.
On Tuesday, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Brock Long told reporters at the White House that it was dispatching the Navy hospital ship Comfort, a converted super tanker with 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, a CAT-scan, and radiology capabilities to Puerto Rico.
Finally! Hospital ship heading to Puerto Rico
Too bad it won’t get there until more than a week from now. This is why you have to think ahead when these things happen.
Well now, Damn, I didn’t know Puerto Rico was an island in the freaking middle of the Atlantic Ocean, did you? An since when did the inhabitants become amer’can citizens????