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As if the onslaught of hurricanes Irma and Maria were not enough, the National Weather Service in San Juan is reporting that a major dam is failing in Puerto Rico and that 70,000 people are being evacuated by bus. From CBS:
The National Weather Service in San Juan said Friday that the northwestern municipalities of Isabela and Quebradillas, home to some 70,000 people, were being evacuated with buses because the nearby Guajataca Dam was failing after Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory.
Maria poured more than 15 inches of rain on the mountains surrounding the dam, swelling the reservoir behind it.
Details remained slim about the evacuation with communications hampered after the storm, but operators of the dam reported that the failure was causing flash-flooding downstream. The 345-yard dam holds back a man-made lake covering about 2 square miles and was built decades ago, U.S. government records show.
"Move to higher ground now," the weather service said in a statement. "This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order."
"Act quickly to protect your life," it added. "Buses will be evacuating people from these areas."
Wikipedia has a page about Guajataca Dam
NWS report on Twitter; also at Al Jazeera and BBC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @09:40PM
When Katrina hit, Dubya sat on his thumb instead of being proactive.
The president is often called "The Chief Executive".
Your memory isn't very good
My memory is just fine.
I remember Dubya saying "Heck of a job, Brownie" to a guy who had ZERO experience in disaster relief.
That would be the guy who spent most of his time flying over New Orleans in his jet, not on the ground getting things going.
...then his buying a bunch of trailers that weren't fit for humans because of formaldehyde outgassing.
I remember Cuba (which has a FEMA-like thing THAT IS ACTUALLY EFFECTIVE) offering help and Dubya turning it down.
Ignoring the impoverished people of color in New Orleans was just another part of the Repug plan to disempower them even more (in addition to e.g dishonestly removing them from voter rolls).
Naomi Klein wrote a book on the Repug attitude toward poor people's bad luck: just another chance to exploit them.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism [google.com]
how many disasters
For anyone who isn't rich|Authoritarian, Trump has been one continuous disaster.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]