Rant about Puerto Rico

So, not long ago Puerto Rico's governor was almost hit with an egg, almost 'cause the person who threw it didn't mean to hit him but to brush pass him.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLrrhBWP0ZI"]YouTube - Le dan huevazo a Fortuño[/ame]

Luis Fortuño, our governor, promised in his campaign that he wouldn't be the one making firing public government employees. At the moment, more than 200,000+ Public employees are fired, ironically the department of education is the one with most unemployed people yet the public education in Puerto Rico sucks balls. From my mother's sector they fired half of her office, and my grandfather's sector they fired about 3 or 4. I understand economy is not good, but the damn governor thinks that firing people is the best way out when it's not!! It's NOT the only way out either, they can stop trying to build the freaking useless buildings they're trying to build and start exporting more coffee and sugar, but hell no! They prefer to fire people 'cause that way they save themselves from losing money and not having to invest. He even made the hospitals charge you money or if not, you don't get treated! What the hell is that!!? Only one hospital here that doesn't go by that and my university took some of the medical students to help.

On the second day he was elected he released a plan to the newspaper which said his ideas to make PR get better, the effin' bastard included what he would take off this paycheck, which was only 1,000 a month? out of the whole lot of money he gets. He says he cares, but he pretty much fires public workers very easily, without hesitating, saying that that will save them money.

Oh! let's not forget how effed up the light system in PR is, every day, every damned day my lights go off! I never experienced a light out in USA.

I am thinking of making me and my family move to USA or elsewhere, PR isn't going to end up pretty, not long ago they were shooting, not really near my house but we heard the shots, a baseball player was killed. Now they're threatening to kill the governor and the governor tries to make silly laws that pretty much makes the PR people more infuriated.

/end rant

I just felt like typing. o.o

 

Come to California in the Summer. We have what are called "Rolling Blackouts" where they deliberately turn the power off on different grid sections throughout entire cities to preserve power the state. Usually the blackouts only last 30 seconds but they can legally last up to 15 minutes at a time. Only places that are exempt are hospitals, airports and nuclear reactors.

 

At least those are minutes, sometimes over here it lasts HOURS and it could last days if a hurricane have passed. Last one we had lasted 2 hours which was horror since that day was 90something degrees.

 

Well a hurricane is a special circumstance. We are told that in the event of a major disaster like a hurricane or earthquake, that we should expect to be on our own for up to 7 days without government assistance including power, running water and so forth.

Though 90 degrees isn't too bad, at least from my standpoint. I don't turn on my AC until the inside of the house hits 90 degrees and have it set to 82 degrees. Can't afford the electricity otherwise. Though in the summer it gets up to 115 degrees outside here. Right now it is 85 outside but 72 inside.

 

Wow! In Hurricane George(1998) when it hit over here our house was destroyed and we were helped instantly, I think if the governor said something like that some would understand, but I am SURE the majority wouldn't. We didn't have electricity for over some weeks when we went to our grandparents house to refuge.

It's not, but it gets hotter inside my house since I barely open any windows. So I have to chose between being hot or sneezing every 5 seconds. Not really easy to decide. In the mornings I get woken up because of the heat, my AC actually stopped functioning because of the heat one day, and I am STILL waiting to buy a new one. ;~; Mornings in PR LOOK pretty but they are so hot.

 

Yet, I'm sure you pay much, much more for electricity / gas / etc than, say, someone on the east coast, or in the midwest because you get the privilege of living in CA. That's just crazy. 7 days is insane.

 

Not that we would go without government assistance for 7 days. Just we need to plan for it. Our last disasters, not counting forest fires, were the Northridge and Loma Prieta earthquakes. Northridge was a 6.7 and Loma Prieta was a 7.1. Luckily for use most quakes are small at 6.0 or less and many of the annual larger ones happen in the middle of the desert where you just ride it out like a roller coaster.

Most of California is actually rural or semi-rural as well with steep mountainous terrain in many locations. When growing up here, there were 4 houses in a two mile radius of where I lived. The nearest emergency services was 25 miles away. Where I live now, if the aquaduct fails, we lose 60% of our water supply. I also live less than 20 miles from the southern section of the San Andreas fault. In fact the main highway leading to Los Angeles/Orange County/San Diego Metroplex from my area literally cuts right through the fault line. If it fails, we're limited to 3 two-lane roads to get to there. One of those roads is closed right now due to the Station Fire a couple of weeks ago, a second parallels the highway and crosses it several times, the third follows a creek bed and dumps people out on Interstate 5. The highway has failed twice in the past. The first was an earthquake in 1971 centered in Sylmar. Though portions of the highway were still under construction at that time. The second time was during the 1992 Northridge Quake. Though we do have three runways locally capable of handling any aircraft in the world for landing and takeoff, including the space shuttle. One of those primarily handles small craft like cessnas but the Air Force paid to have its runway strengthened and lengthened in case the space shuttle ever over shot Edwards.

Things have changed since I was growing up though. Los Angeles County has an emergency response center locally with 50 fire units, 6 helicoptors, hazmat teams and an urban rescue team. Outside of that, there are almost 50 fire stations and 4 sheriff's stations in the area. When I was growing up, we had 4 fire stations and one sheriff station covering the same square mileage. Of course when I started high school the city of Palmdale has 13,000 residents. When I graduated from high school 4 years later, the city of Palmdale had 125,000 residents.

I actually don't think it is a privilege to live in California. However it is a nice place to live if you're not in Los Angeles. Sticking 14 million people in a single area is never good.

Not sure what the population density of Puerto Rico is outside of San Juan, but I can guess it is very light in some areas and that would factor into power usage and so forth. The Puerto Rico economy has to be hurting right now as well. As it is a U.S. Territory, you don't need passports to go there but many people hurt by the recession aren't going to the Caribbean for holidays right now. As a territory it is outside U.S. Sugar Subsidies as well which would help the economy there.

 

I just had to pay $5.00 for a LB of sugar at the super market, cheapest one around too

PR should be rolling in the cash :lol:

 

:lol: Thank you! You have my heart!! You're now considered my hero.

 

CA imports more than it can export with its power generation, as one of the issues for having RBs. Tons of bureaucracy to get new power generation construction. One in south bay of San Jose...has taken some 7 years iirc. I still don't know its operational, and it is natural gas, which costs more, but it was meant to be a peaking unit...

Kinda funny. I grew in Victorville and Apply Valley. NOt too far from your stakes. Love Hwy 14.

Been through the earthquakes you mentioned...holy cow the 1992 earthquake of Northridge...I was on top of it, literally.

As for PRs power issues...any improvements since your initial rant FMB? I did see a news snippet of the refinery fire.....oh wow!!

 

Oh yeah, that made international news. There is pretty much no improvements government wise, but I did like the quick action that was made because of this, I felt though that this will gain a little trust from the public.

I felt the explosion from my room, and I live quite far from the refinery, from where I live you could see the wall of smoke and the smoke got close to us. The explosion released so much energy, my brother called me at the second he also felt it, and he was with his dad who lives in the country side of PR, and they also felt it. My mom was working in the Departamento de La Familia in Guaynabo, almost close to Bayamón and she had to move back to her actual workspace in San Juan. I think they moved the prisoners, specially the kids, a maybe a bit late, I think they would have ensured first that human lives wouldn't be in jeopardy.

Other than that, I guess, even my family, we are impressed that the government acted quickly.