No Fast Response

From USA Today:
"U.S. can't respond as fast to disasters in Hawaii, Alaska as mainland"

The U.S. isn’t prepared to respond to disasters in Hawaii, Alaska or on Pacific Islands as fast as on the American mainland, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. Islands such as Guam could suffer the same fate as Puerto Rico, where thousands of residents are still waiting for power to be restored five months after Hurricane Maria struck the island. In the rest of the country, the Corps has plans in place for emergency power generators, debris removal crews, bucket trucks and linemen to roll into mainland states as a storm recedes. Those plans did not apply to Puerto Rico, where the Caribbean Sea posed an obstacle to getting supplies and people to the island.  Lessons learned from the slow pace of restoring power to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria last September should be applied to other isolated states and territories, including Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Virgin Islands and U.S. atolls in the Pacific, said Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  “I don’t think you can treat the (U.S.) Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska and the atolls the same way you treat the Lower 48,” Semonite told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday. Hurricane Maria raked Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Sept. 20 and Sept. 17, bringing down a neglected and weakened power system. Nearly 86% of customers now have power, according to the Department of Energy .Future planning should include identifying priorities in every city and permanently parking supplies and equipment on isolated states and territories for emergencies, he said. “I’m not satisfied that people in Puerto Rico should have to wait 158 days for power,” Semonite said Wednesday. “It’s too long.” Semonite said he hopes to get 95% of residents hooked up by the end of March, but that it’s unclear if or when the last 5% will have power.  Those customers tend to be the “four houses at the top of a mountain, with a wire that goes up the side of a cliff,” he said. “The question is how to get power there,” and whether those homes still exist or will be rebuilt, he said. The Corps sent people to Puerto Rico's capital San Juan  a few days before the storm, but there were not enough plans, contracts and supplies in place so much of the recovery effort had to ramp up later. The logistics of transporting gear and supplies such as cement, transmission towers and electric poles to the island is still an issue today, he said. In the future, “I want them there earlier,” Semonite said.  

^ The United States has military bases and ships stationed across the world and so should be able to go to any US territory (or state) right away to give immediate assistance. Hopefully, things have changed after what happened in Puerto Rico so they won't happen in the future. ^

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/22/u-s-cant-respond-disasters-hawaii-alaska-pacific-islands-fast-mainland/362429002/