CBS News reporter David Begnaud discovered that there are 3,000 containers of food, water, and medicine that have been sitting idly in the port of San Juan, Puerto Rico since Saturday. Begnaud says he has been told that there are no truck drivers coming to pick them up.
Maddening.
3,000 shipping containers packed with food water & medicene have been sitting at the port in Puerto Rico since Saturday pic.twitter.com/LJ0ETpmnOf— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 27, 2017
Perhaps the U.S. military could be of assistance?
Perhaps there is no fuel for the trucks?
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is sitting on approval of a waiver of The Jones Act, which bars foreign ships delivering supplies from the U.S. mainland:
The Trump administration has so far not granted this, saying it is evaluating the issue.
Many of the U.S. territory's 3.4 million inhabitants are queuing for scarce supplies of gas and diesel to run generators as the island's electrical grid remains crippled a week after Maria hit. Government-supplied water trucks have been mobbed.
Puerto Rico gets most of its fuel by ship from the United States, but one of its two main ports is closed and the other is operating only during the daytime.
…The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which waived the law after Irma and after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August, said on Wednesday it was considering a request by members of Congress for a waiver, but had not received any formal requests from shippers or other branches of the federal government.