city water. rely on the cisterns in their houses and the electric pumps to provide the water this come to their showers. they can t even turn on the faucet to get some sort of drinking water, any water, they can t even boil it if they were to get water. unless they have a gas stove. yes. yeah, exactly, right? it s this cascade effect. and it s not just something, you know, as basic as bathing. it s something that s essential to life as medicine. because think about it this way. if you can t access the internet, your pharmacy can t call your insurance company to verify your insurance the phone lines don t even work down there. because the phone lines don t work, the internet doesn t work. and because we re such a cashless society now, it s a big deal in terms of getting money. they can t go to the atm and get money and they can t use their credit card at the stores to get supplies. it s a mess. health and human services
elaine duke had to go back and direct the record with what she said yesterday saying she was happy with the efforts. she said obviously the situation down there is not satisfactory, but she s proud of the work that is being done. i was struck that there were a lot of platitudes being given about all the efforts that were going on down there but there wasn t a lot of substance as to what they re doing or how they re trying to change thing, how they re trying to make sure that logistics and supply logistics are clear and supplies are getting from the ports to the people. and that s, of course, the key question that remains and the administration has been very candid about the fact that that is the biggest challenge. they say they have 10,000 people on the ground, 7,000 who are in the military. and yet they re having this problem in terms of distributing the goods, the food, the water that they need to get to people who are suffering right now, katy. so i think that they re working th
over? is there something missing that i don t understand. even if the military were to have a larger presence down there, katy, one of the thins i learned when i was in the virgin islands a couple of days ago reporting on the extensive damage on the ground there is that the military doesn t really have enough to do because of its own chain of command issues and bureaucratic inefficiencies. i saw people in uniform just standing around in parking lots. so somebody i interviewed said to me, it s great that the federal government and fema and the military send people here. but when they send 100 people, 70 of those have clipboards and 30 actually do the work. i think it s just a question of prioritizing tasks and responsibilities. the entire island doesn t have any power. what does that mean when you don t have power? lay it out for us. on a tropical island, it s a much larger inconvenience than it would be in the united states. think about it this way. a lot of these people don t ha
energy be processed moved and effect tiffly used during blackout or extreme conditions. the bottom line here, just so everybody understands, everything we have, even coffee makers have chips in them and frankly if the power doesn t work, the internet doesn t work and every aspect of life ceases to function reasonably if at all, as most of us have experienced with blackout here in washington just ten days ago. you say that we should all be prepared to live without electricity for a week. i loved in alaska off the grid, so i m pretty sure i can rough it. but for our city slickers, what would you have them have in their go-bags or in their basement. do you say? place? do you shelter in place, or do you go somewhere. if you can shelter in place, do so. i have at least 15 gallons of water and a month of food,
i am proud of the work that s being done. i am proud of americans helping americans. friends and strangers alike. i am proud of the work that dod, fema and the territory along with first responders are doing. clearly the situation here in puerto rico after the devasta devastating hurricane is not satisfactory. but together we are getting there. and the progress today is very, very strong. the president and i will not be fully satisfied, however, until every puerto rican is back home, the power is back on, clean water is freely available, schools and hospitals are open and the puerto rican economy is working. right now our top priorities are the lives and safety of our fellow americans. there s much work to do. i spent all morning with the governor and received those priorities to make sure we re on target. we continue to stand with the