Rat infestation spoils food, donated supplies never sent to Puerto Rico
Source: Orlando Sentinel
Rat infestation spoils food, donated supplies never sent to Puerto Rico
Bianca Padró Ocasio
FEBRUARY 6, 2018 6:35 PM
A rat infestation closed down a government office in Kissimmee that was storing donations destined for Puerto Rico, contaminating boxes of supplies that were never sent to the island.
The office of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration does not have the budget to finance the shipping costs of the supplies, according to PRFAAs executive director Carlos Mercader. He added that previous efforts to send the boxes of water, food and other supplies through other organizations have been unsuccessful.
Mercader could not say how many boxes were on the property, but the islands regional office had collected the items in Hurricane Marias aftermath, from local organizations and private individuals.
Due to the many Puerto Rican families that have been displaced to Florida because of the hurricane, we have donated the meals to Puerto Rican families in need, Mercader said Tuesday in a statement. We will soon conduct an inventory of the donations to identify which ones are fit to be given out to Puerto Rican evacuees in Central Florida.
Read more: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-fema-prfaa-puerto-rico-rat-invasion-20180206-story.html
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,467 posts)Congressional Republicans are much more concerned about contributions to themselves and their owners than using public money to get supplies to U.S. citizens in dire need.
Tax dollars are for looting, not disaster relief.
not fooled
(5,803 posts)that make government look incompetent. Of course, the media rarely tells the other part of the story: the deliberate underfunding and other machinations to make programs fail.
Ilsa
(61,700 posts)of crooks who rip off the folks needing the help.
not fooled
(5,803 posts)they have no problem funding when it's in effect laundering money into the pockets of their cronies and campaign contributors.
But, adequately funding a Federal agency to properly carry out its mission through Federal employees? Naw. That's what they want to see destroyed.
Ilsa
(61,700 posts)the people running fema cared, and because they knew the president cared. FEMA under Bush and Trump reflects how little they think about the poor and people in need.
iluvtennis
(19,880 posts)marble falls
(57,333 posts)in less than thirty days.
The real rat infestation is in the White House.
Igel
(35,362 posts)"... the islands regional office had collected the items in Hurricane Marias aftermath, from local organizations and private individuals."
If there's a FEMA issue, it's that they didn't provide free transportation for the supplies collected by part of the PR government on the mainland. At least that's from what's actually in the article.