People Are Not Dying in Puerto Rico.

Late on Friday (29/9/17) the Mayor of the Puerto Rican city of San Juan gave a press conference on the city and the territory's ongoing response to Hurricane Maria.

In response to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma the Governor's of Texas and Florida's similar press conferences were very dry affairs. They were little more than technical status updates detailing what had been damaged, what had been repaired and what repair works were still underway.

San Juan's Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz went in a very different direction.

Standing in a warehouse full to bursting with relief supplies she claimed that people were dying all across the island due to a lack of relief supplies.

Mayor Cruz went onto appeal for international support claiming that the territory and its people had been failed to the US Federal government of President Trump. She even accused him of committing genocide.

This claim that; "People Are Dying in Puerto Rico" has really become the mantra of the past week. I've heard it repeated by numerous US news outlets along with celebrities such as Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Mayor Cruz has even taken the time to print up T-shirts bearing the slogan.

It is simply not true.

During the hurricane 16 people died on Puerto Rico. Since then nobody has died as a result of the hurricane including the shortages it has created.

This is not a subjective matter. It is not open for interpretation. It doesn't change based on the way that you feel.

It is simply a fact. No-one is dying on Puerto Rico.

Sadly this claim that people are dying is just one of a number of pernicious rumours that have been circulating.

A particularly nasty one was that the US State Department was evacuating White residents from Puerto Rico but refusing to evacuate Hispanic residents. Racist Trump was then ordering the State Department to confiscate passports from the Hispanic residents effectively stripping them of their US citizenship.

This rumour doesn't even survive basic scrutiny. Puerto Rico is a US territory. As such the State Department has no more role there then it did in Texas or Florida. Despite it being impossible for the rumour to be true some US news outlets like "The Hill" website have taken to reporting it as fact.

During disaster relief efforts spreading these type of rumours can be extremely damaging and actually endanger life.

In order to avoid dying of thirst an average person only needs a cola can of water every three days. If that is all the water you are consuming you will suffer from a dry mouth, tiredness and if you're anything like me an extremely bad mood. However you will not die.

Through various famines I have watched people starve to death. It is a horrifyingly long process.

The average person can go entirely without food for a full six weeks before they will starve. Even by consuming tiny amounts of calories from berries, bugs and other insects this period can be extended by huge amounts.

Obviously I know all this from experience. However most people do not. When you're tired, hungry and thirsty and you've got your children screaming a sort of panic inevitably sets in.

Having a public official claim entirely falsely that people are dying of thirst and dying of hunger all across the island is going to make this panic worse driving the sort of mass hysteria in which people do all sorts of crazy things.

What a strong leader would do is be honest with people and help to reassure them rather than making the situation worse by scaring them more.

I think it has become pretty clear though that Puerto Rico has no strong leaders.

Although it has certainly not been slow the emergency response to Hurricane Maria has at times been utterly shambolic. Particularly at the local level.

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on September 20th (20/9/17). That same day the Federal government had four quick response teams active on the ground conducting reconnaissance.

This is an aspect of disaster relief that is often unnoticed by the public because it involves people flying over the area in helicopters and sitting in offices studying satellite imagery. However it is an absolutely essential part. In order to solve a problem or even bring in the tools to solve a problem first you need to know exactly what the problem is.

By September 22nd (22/9/17) a so-called "Air Bridge" had been established to fly relief supplies from the US mainland to Puerto Rico. Also the first ships carrying relief supplies which had been dispatched before the hurricane had arrived off the coast of the island and were awaiting the re-opening of ports so they could dock.

On September 24th (24/9/17) the Port of San Juan reopened and relief supplies started to be brought ashore.

By September 28th (28/9/17) almost 10,000 shipping containers of relief supplies had been brought ashore at San Juan port along with around 8.8 million barrels of fuel. However all that aid then just sat on San Juan docks because there was no local plan to distribute it.

At this point it became clear that local authorities on this Democrat run territory were simply not up to the job. So Lt General Jeffery Buchanan of the US Army was appointed to do it for them.

Since Lt.General Buchanan started work of Friday (29/9/17)  things have improved dramatically.

Fuel has started being released from San Juan port and distributed to essential services such as hospitals, command centres and trucking companies distributing aid. Fuel is even being distributed to the general public on a rationed basis.

Some 137 cell towers have been brought back online dramatically improving communications across the island.

Those 10,000 shipping containers have been distributed from San Juan docks via 11 regional staging areas across Puerto Rico. That not only puts that aid into the hands of the public it also frees up space to bring in more supplies.

That it took the appointment of US Army General to establish those regional staging areas is an appalling indictment of the appalling way that local Democrat authorities have responded to this hurricane.

A General or other Federal official flying into Puerto Rico is not going to know how many people are living in the various towns and villages spread across the island.

They're also not going to know how those communities function in terms of where's the big building like a Church or school where people congregate, who is related to whom and who is friends with whom.

Local officials like Mayors though should absolutely know these sort of things. Therefore the setting up of regional distribution points is entirely their responsibility.

In fact as part of effective disaster preparedness planning they should have identified these points long before there was even a suggestion a hurricane would strike.

The main challenge on Puerto Rico remains electricity supply with some 90% of the island's grid out of commission.

I don't know exactly what the problem with the power grid is.

However I do know that power grids are designed to operate on, well, a grid system. That means if one or even multiple cells or areas on the grid is put out of action you can still continue to supply power to the other cells on the grid.

For 90% of even a small power grid like Puerto Rico's to fail something catastrophic must have happened. Therefore it is likely that there are a lot more than just one thing that needs to be repaired before power can be fully restored across the territory.

If these problems are of the scale of transformers or turbines being destroyed what you will have to do is contact a company like General Electric and ask them to build replacements from scratch in their factories. Once that is complete you need to transport the replacements to Puerto Rico and install them.

That is obviously going to take months rather than weeks. In the meantime partial power can be provide through onsite generators provided there is an effective logistics network to keep them supplied with fuel.

Again rather than trying to whip the public into a frenzy over the lack of power you would expect leaders in Puerto Rico to be honest with people about the scale of the problem and reassure them that work is underway.

12:10 on 1/10/17 (UK date).