Climate Changed
FEMA Emptied Its Puerto Rico Warehouse Just Before Maria Struck
Destroyed homes sit surrounded by debris from Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 25, 2017.
Photographer: Alex Wroblewski/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s warehouse on Puerto Rico was full of supplies for an event just like Hurricane Maria: a quarter-million meals, 718,370 liters of water, 4,422 cots and 13,272 tarps.
But a new report says FEMA removed most of those supplies just days before Maria hit, sending them to the U.S. Virgin Islands, which had just been struck by Hurricane Irma. By Sept. 15, FEMA had taken out 90 percent of the bottled water, 61 percent of the meals and 100 percent of the tarps and cots from its warehouse.
