Folks, this is alarming. An explosive video from Puerto Rico shows a massive warehouse of emergency hurricane relief supplies discovered highlighting emergency supplies delivered in the aftermath of hurricane Maria that were never distributed.
The warehouse was discovered after the recent earthquake, and the building suffering damage. After CTH initially saw the report, I had to go find the raw video to see just how much 2017 aid was being hidden in this warehouse; and the full video is simply stunning. First, the report:
(VIA CBS) Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced fired the island’s emergency management director on Saturday, after a video showing aid sitting unused in a warehouse went viral on social media. Some of the aid has allegedly been sitting in the warehouse since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017.“There are thousands of people who have made sacrifices to help those in the south, and it is unforgivable that resources were kept in the warehouse,” Vázquez said in a statement.
Garced said in a statement that she has ordered Secretary of State Elmer Roman to conduct a “thorough investigation into the mishandling of emergency aid in a warehouse in Ponce,” CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reports.“I have given 48 hours for this investigation. The investigation is to include this warehouse and any others which may exist,” her statement read. “In the same vein, I have decided to relieve Carlos Acevedo of his duties as the commissioner of the National Emergency Management and Disaster Relief Agency.”Vázquez said she would nominate the current Puerto Rican National Guard chief for Senate consideration to replace Acevedo. (read more)
Many CTH readers know I am a CERT response leader for Hurricane relief; and in that capacity I have a pretty good idea of logistics, costs, and the scale of moving supplies into impact zones. After initially reading the report on twitter, and seeing a portion of the video, I went in search of the raw video to see the size and scale of this ‘warehouse’.
Here’s the longer video:
What has been found here is a massive storage facility. I would estimate the size of the warehouse around 200,000 sq ft (minimum) based on video and exterior truck bays.
The video shows thousands of pallets, double and triple stacked, of key and essential emergency supplies. Bottled water, shelf-stable food, diapers, baby formula, blankets, tarps, tents, propane grills, propane, emergency lights, batteries, flashlights, emergency radios, potable water cans and much, much more.
To give you an idea of the scale, there’s at least 100 semi truck loads of supplies in this video, in this single warehouse.
Logistically each trailer would haul 22/24 single stack pallets, or 66/72 triple stack. With more than a dozen staged pallet jacks, this warehouse is holding serious money.
It is unfathomable these supplies were not distributed; and worse yet were likely being re-sold on the black market.
These emergency supplies and materials were delivered in 2017. On December 28th, 2019, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake hit Puerto Rico and President Trump authorized an additional $8.2 billion in aid….
President Trump was correct:
