Geraldo: Hurricanes Hitting Puerto Rico a ‘Calamity of Historic Dimensions’

RUSH EXCERPT:

GERALDO: "The latest is over my shoulder, Pete, abbey and Todd. You’ll see another barge coming in bearing necessary supplies and I have to credit the fact that the president has agreed to suspended Jones act. The Jones act required vessels only of American flag to do commerce with Puerto Rico which was really making everything more expensive and morecambe som and limiting the amount of goods that came in. I had a shot of a ship laden with containers bringing vital supplies here to Puerto Rico. I know there is something called compassion fatigue. We have gone through hurricane Harvey now. We have gone threw hurricane Irma now and hurricane MARIA so you want to feel sorry for people and you want to be generous and help out but you’re just so many catastrophes competing for center stage and the world platform but I urge people not to feel that way about what’s happened here. This is a calamity of historic dimensions. There has never been a natural disaster that negatively impacted more people than the hurricanes that hit here in Puerto Rico. People are still the vast majority 99% of the folks here are without electrical power. Half of them are without freshwater. There is no cell service. There’s no Internet. That lack of communication helps create the kind of panic that results in those lines at the gas station, but this disaster has affected every corner of this island of 3.4 million people. Just pan over. It’s really the historic buildings. This building behind the generator that’s filled with debris there was built in the 1700s. They were in the process of restoring it. It has absolutely as you can see been destroyed, been devastated. It’s gone and probably can never be rebuilt. Earlier, I was in the historic happy neighborhood called laperl a. If that sounds familiar to folks is the neighborhood Oscar you Lewis and his classic book where he showed a Puerto rican family in poverty but struggling and succeeding in their life. I went through that neighborhood and building after building a neighborhood that’s been around for generations have been destroyed. Manuel torres has live in the same house for 61 years. That house now is half destroyed his neighbors homes are also destroyed. Here is what he had to say about the storm’s impact."