Worst storm in century leaves Puerto Rico on brink of humanitarian crisis

Supermarkets are gradually re-opening in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico but the situation is far from normal and many customers are going home disappointed.

The fact that some stores and restaurants have re-opened for the first time since Category 4 Hurricane Maria roared across the island September 20 is welcome in a place where nearly everyone has no power and more than half the people don't have water.

Governor Ricardo Rossello and other Puerto Rican officials said some ports have been cleared by the Coast Guard to resume accepting ships, which should allow businesses to restock. But the situation remains far from normal.

Many people living near a crumbling dam in storm-battered Puerto Rico have been evacuated, Rossello said on Monday, as he asked for more government aid to avert a humanitarian crisis after Hurricane Maria.

There have been growing concerns for some 70,000 people who live in the river valley below the Guajataca Dam in the island's northwest, where cracks were seen on Friday in the 88-year-old earthen structure.

Rossello said he was working on the assumption that the 35-m (120-foot) dam would collapse.

"I'd rather be wrong on that front than doing nothing and having that fail and costing people lives," he said in an interview with CNN. "Most of the people in the near vicinity have evacuated."

About 320 people from small towns closest to the dam have moved to safety, according to local media.

The fear of a potentially catastrophic dam break added to the immense task facing disaster relief authorities after Maria, which was the second major hurricane to strike the Caribbean this month. 

Economic crisis

The storm killed at least 29 people in the region, at least 10 of those in Puerto Rico, which was already battling an economic crisis.

Rossello said that before the storm struck, he had been embarking on an aggressive fiscal agenda that included more than $1.5 billion in cuts.

"This is a game changer," he told CNN. "This is a completely different set of circumstances. This needs to be taken into consideration otherwise there will be a humanitarian crisis."

Governor Rossello on Monday asked for more government aid to avert a humanitarian crisis in the island. The Puerto Rico government also asked a judge for up to four extra weeks to meet key deadlines in its bankruptcy case after Hurricane Maria brought its fragile infrastructure to its knees.

White House response

A lot of politicians criticised US President Donald Trump for his delayed response to the situation in Puerto Rico, one of whom was Hillary Clinton. 

“He clearly doesn’t want to talk about Puerto Rico,” Clinton said on Monday evening on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes. 

“More than 3.5 million American citizens, along with the US Virgin Islands. Not interested. Doesn’t say a word about it.”

Hayes also agreed.

Trump said on Monday Puerto Rico is in "deep trouble" after being hit by Hurricane Maria and that its billions of dollars of debt to the Wall Street and banks "must be dealt with."

"Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble," Trump wrote in a series of posts on Twitter.

"It's (sic) old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with," he added.

Trump did not offer a pathway for dealing with Puerto Rico's debt. 

The US territory, struggling with $72 billion in debt, filed the biggest government bankruptcy in US history earlier this year.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters in Washington that the administration was engaged in a fact-finding process to figure out how much help Puerto Rico needs.

"The federal response has been anything but slow," Sanders said at the daily briefing. "In fact, there's been an unprecedented push through of billions of dollars in federal assistance that the administration has fought for."

Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Tom Bossert, senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security, met with Rossello on Monday.

Worst storm in a century
Many structures on Puerto Rico, including hospitals, remain badly damaged and flooded, with clean drinking water hard to find in some areas. Few planes have been able to land or take off from damaged airports.  

The storm has also put a big strain on Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the island's electricity utility, which declared bankruptcy in July after accumulating a $9 billion debt and years of under-investment.

Eighty percent of the power lines in Puerto Rico are down, PREPA said on Monday. 

PREPA spokesman Carlos Monroig said the utility is evaluating all of Puerto Rico's electrical infrastructure by air.

There are more than 10,000 federal staff members, including more than 700 people from FEMA, doing recovery work in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, according to FEMA.

The National Weather Service warned of further flash floods in the west of the island on Monday as thunderstorms moved in.