Turn the Lights Out When You Leave

I'm home.

Still trying to figure out which end is up.  I arrived a little over a week ago, late on Thursday night, weary and shell-shocked.  Eight days later, I am just starting to get my feet under me.

People want to know how the trip was.  Whether it was fun.  How I liked it. Where my suntan is.

Fun?

I'll sum it up, just to make it clear.

My deployment was brutal, but important.  Given the different permutations available, I will take that combination, every single time.  Gimme important battles to fight with real consequences, and let me see how I can help.  The work was hard, and the reasons were complex, and there were battles raging on all sides.  Some of them were overblown (including an honest-do-goodness "fake news" story - see below).  Some of them were unnecessary.  And then some of them were

Unfinished Business

November 19, 2017, 2330 hrs: Crorey arrives in Puerto Rico. 

A couple of days before my arrival, I saw this video that inspired me:

https://twitter.com/USACEHQ/status/930799330398699520

...and that video set the tone for expectations for the two-month effort.  It is true.  I fully expected to hear those cheers regularly.  I mean, I was not going to be the field guy, but that cheer when the lights went on was both the goal and the expectation:  I envisioned videos every few days from the field, as people get charged up, leaving me charged up as well.  I was going to be building relationships, fighting to get funding to get the mission completed, working to do the job. Bringing lights to the people of Puerto Rico.

Fifty eight days later, I am two days away from leaving a situation that is not yet fixed.  I am leaving behind work that still needs to be done, and it is work that needs to be done in areas I thought would be complete by now.

The work is not complete.  I am leaving without having done what I thought I would be able to do.  There should be a feeling of satisfaction that accompanies the completion of a mission, a sign that announces MISSION COMPLETE!

Or, at the least, there should be a profound sense of accomplishment associated with furthering the mission.  I am just a cog, but I am a cog in a significant effort.  And I am adding my weight to the pushing.

I am struggling to get my arms wrapped around what I am feeling right now.  It is not disappointment in my effort or in the mission.  The situation needed our attention, and it needed that attention right away.  We came in and pushed as hard as we possibly could.  It was, and is, a good mission.  It has been an incredible effort.

It also has nothing to do with the people working the mission.  Everyone I met - with one notable exception (adult beverage conversation) represented the best of what the Corps of Engineers brings to the work it does.  They are dedicated.  They work hard. 

What is Wrong?

This situation is a mess.  Despite everyone's hard work and great intentions, the situation here is just rough.

We have so many problems, that I have to number them.

1.  When the Corps of Engineers came down to Puerto Rico, we were tasked with doing one thing.  Eventually, the work we were doing was morphed into something else. And then something else.  First we were restoring the grid (ESTAMOS AQUI!).  Then we were restoring all power to everyone (YAY!).  Then we were restoring some power, and working with the local utility to bring the rest back (POWER TO THE PEOPLE!).  It is difficult, however, to capture the flag if your end zones keep changing.

We are working in partnership with FEMA, who is providing the funds, and with the local electric board.  PREPA is a public utility, they are flat broke (having declared bankruptcy in July of last year), they have a system that is hopelessly outdated, and are almost entirely made up of people who replaced their predecessors, many of whom got fired after the storm.

The media reported on something this week that demonstrates a serious issue.  There is a warehouse that was under the control of the local public utilities company.  Apparently, there was a bit of consternation about the fact that they were not coming forward with the stuff that was stockpiled there.  The lead from FEMA gave the strong impression in a stakeholders meeting that she was not above using Federal Marshals to storm the place and turn the materials over to the contractors doing the work.

The story here gets a little muddy.  But the best I can figure out, the warehouse was filled with materials from dead projects.  You know, like that 1958 Ford Fairlane that you have in your garage, but have never been able to complete?  The parts are stacked up, but you have completely given up on getting it running again.

And yet, if someone asked you for parts for fixing cars, you might not think of your Fairlane.

That is kind of what the current situation was with the power company.  They had dead project stuff.  Not well catalogued.  Not usable for regular maintenance.  Not on anybody's radar.  There is also suggestions that the information about what was there had been made available, but that the right people did not know about it.  (The communication issues following a disaster is a whole different blog entry).

Shipping the Goods

Gratuitous pic of a truck replacing
a line on a narrow street.  Photo by Kathe.

"We have scavenged all the materials we can from damaged poles and lines.  As of Tuesday, we will be out of materials to continue work on the electrical lines in the city."

The Mayor of Villalba, Puerto Rico, was talking to a group of officials from Puerto Rico Power, FEMA and the Corps.  He shared the extent of the damage done, and what remains to be done.  Today marks the 100th day since the storm hit.

Villalba, for those of you not familiar with the geography of the island, is not the most remote town in Puerto Rico.

The utilities official agreed with the mayor.  If materials were on hand, 60% of the lights in the village would already be energized.  And then everyone turned and looked at the representative from the Corps.

Arms folded.  Well?

This scene has played itself out in similar scenes all across the island.  Because of a host of logistical problems with getting stuff shipped to the island, teams from every contractor and subcontractor have taken valuable (read:expensive) time to recycle for reuse any available scrap from the lines that were destroyed.  Wire coiled and set aside.  Boxes filled with scavenged connectors and insulators and bolts.  Stacks of crossarms.

We have been struggling since right after the storm to get material where it needs to go.

We have a group of guys who we refer to as the BOM Squad.  BOM - Bill of Materials - is the physical stuff we need to do the work.  From day one, the BOM Squad has had the hardest job on the island. They are responsible for moving tens of thousands of power poles, hundreds of transmission towers, thousands of insulators, hundreds of transformers, wire, (LOTS of wire), and tons of nuts, bolts, crimps, and other stuff with exciting names like "Fuse Link 140A dsv Universal Fast" or "Cutout KVMAS 200A" - and getting it all where it needs to go.  (Fun fact: there are chainsaws in the mix, too.)

Here's the thing: If you don't have all of the pieces, then you don't connect the electricity, and you don't turn on the refrigerator.  And people fold their arms at you and stare.  Well?

The BOM Squad made their order based on very early information about what the needs were, with a lot of uncertainty in what the actual needs were.  And there have been countless bottlenecks:

Bottleneck at the manufacturing facility.  Much of the stuff we are getting in every day is stamped with a production date from last month.  That is unheard of.  We have been literally having stuff manufactured, rolled off the assembly line/out of the kiln, stamped, and immediately put on a truck.

Bottleneck at the port, where the stuff was supposed to be loaded on barges.  Eventually, we moved all of the stuff to a different port. And shipped it out from there.

Bottleneck at the port on the island.  Taking the items off the barge, putting them down in the yard, opening the containers, cataloging, counting, repacking, setting them on trucks, distributing them to the laydown yards.

Bottleneck at the warehouse.

They have been streamlining, and the process is better.  But there was no material on hand.  EVERYTHING had to be shipped.  What is worse, original estimates have changed, and items have been added.  With no change in the timeline.



And then how do you determine who gets priority for receiving the stuff?  No matter what you decide (First come/first served?  Big city first?  Industry first?), you will be charged with favoring one group over another.

'The Corps favors the contractors they hired, and are not giving material to the locals who need it.'
'The Corps is favoring one contractor over another.'
'The Corps is favoring the locals over the contractors, who cannot perform according to the contract if they don't get the stuff.'
'The Corps is favoring one region/one village/one town over another.'

Now, two months after the order was made, we are starting to see an increase in the stream of goods that are coming to the island.  Every day, we are counting containers of material, hundreds of poles, and getting more stuff into the hands of the contractors and workers who can majically turn bits of metal into electricity in the homes of those who need it. And they won't have to rely exclusively on cannibalized material to do it.

We are answering the question from the Mayor of Villalba.  We are ordering material and providing it as quickly, distributing it as widely, and helping as many people as we can.  As soon as we are told of the need for specific elements, we order them and get them in.  As they are received, we turn them over to the team needing the material.  To get them back to work.

The trickle of BOM is turning into a stream.  And soon, God willing, the stream will turn into a river.  As that happens, we can get it all into the hands of those who can bring power to the people.

Estamos aqui.

Even in Villalba.

The Beauty of Recovery

When I arrived in Puerto Rico, just a few days before Thanksgiving, almost two full months has passed since Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico.  And I don't know what I expected to find.  But even then, there were indications that recovery was going to be fast and slow.

Amazing food, everywhere - the kitchens were open.  Lots of hustle and bustle.  Grocery stores, stocked with food.  A few shelves were a little threadbare, but there was nothing that I needed that I couldn't get.  Well, except for a hotel room....

I came in to my office on day, and on the way I saw some beautiful flowers, and almost immediately fell in love with the tropical paradise.  It was as if I was hearing half of the song from West Side Story:

Always the pineapples growing, 
Always the coffee blossoms blowing . . . 

Yes.  It is still a disaster zone.  There were piles of debris.  There were downed trees and power lines.  There were buildings with broken windows.

And then, there were some trees that had just started to put on leaves, despite the hit.

Plumeria with a few remaining leaves.

All the leaves that remained were tattered, and most were ripped off.  But there was, at least, a little evidence of what could come back.

"If I had known, I would never have bought this house"

As my team and I are driving through the post-flood areas of Monroe, Louisiana, we stop and ask residents about flooding depths for the recent disaster.  Mostly, people are willing to talk - we serve as confessor and sounding board and, eventually, hopefully, as financial intercessor with the funding folks.

And people want us to hear what their experience was.

So more than once, I entered into a conversation with people involved with a recently minted, and unannounced disaster, and began to hear their story.  And every time, the story involves a combination of limited resources, inability to move, repetitive damages ("this is the third time in five years we have had to move our stuff off the floor to avoid getting it wet!") and poor infrastructure.

Believe me, if these folks had the resources to not live in the floodplain, they would not live in the floodplain.

So I hopped out of the car at 3pm to ask an older man sitting in his driveway.

"You lost?" he asked, not unkindly.

Fair enough. We had driven through the neighborhood twice.

"No, sir.  Just working with a recovery group to see if we can figure out where the floodwaters came, and how high they were.  Did your house flood?"

"Yeah, it did!  Come on inside and I'll show you!"

Once I am inside, his wife explains to me from her chair in the den that he has Alzheimers, and that he confuses the different flooding events.

The house has been updated to allow for cleanup.  Flooring that can be squeegied.  Concrete blocks at the ready to put sofa up higher, out of the expected floodwaters.

Let me say that again.  Expected floodwaters.

Because even people who can't afford to move can afford concrete blocks.

While I was there, their daughter called, and she wanted to know WHO THE HELL WAS IN THE HOUSE AND WHO SENT HIM TO COME INSIDE!?!

I explained, as calmly as I could, that nobody sent me.  That I understood the concern.  And that I had had zero intention of coming in.  I just asked a question, and had come inside by invitation.  The wife nodded, because my explanation made sense.  And conveyed that to the daughter, who was doing her job to protect the family.

As I was taking my leave, the old man looked at me and said, "We keep getting flooded, over and over again.  If I had known it was going to be like this, I never would have bought this house."

That story.  Repeated in communities across the parish, the state, the nation.  Ending up with limited hope, limited options, and no opportunities, and then being blamed - in the media, in the federal agencies that support recovery, even in the charitable organizations who are trying to help - for being too stupid to realize the danger.  For choosing poorly.

And that is those media outlets that even cover it.  Have you seen the damage from the Louisiana floods in March?  Any coverage at all?  Is there a demand that Congress support these folks?

If so, I haven't seen it.

It keeps me up at night.  It makes me wake up angry, and determined to see past what can be done, to what needs to be done.  To look outside the box for solutions that will help build communities, provide opportunities, and introduce basic services to areas that don't have them.

For all that Reagan was right about the nine most terrifying words in the English language*, it is a moral imperative that we use those words.  And that we use the opportunity to help people. To provide information to communities reeling after a disaster.

To live up to the position that I hold, as public servant.


*The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ronaldreag128358.html