FEMA is much more “efficient” these days. During the aftermath of Hurricane Opal back in 1995, FEMA hired people with pickups to drive around neighborhoods to distribute ice, water, and food to people. Other FEMA workers canvased the neighborhood to see if anyone wanted to file the paperwork for other assistance. People cleaned up their neighborhoods, and FEMA debris haulers carted it away.

This was before gas stations had generators to pump gas, so people couldn’t go driving around.

Under the Shrubbery everything changed and FEMA became “efficient”. FEMA didn’t deliver; you had to find a way to get to a distribution point, and a single vehicle could only pick a single ‘ration’. You couldn’t pool your gas and send a pickup for supplies for the neighborhood, each family had to drive to the distribution point.

If you wanted other assistance you had to register with FEMA by calling an 800 number, or going to their web site. As we didn’t have electricity or communication lines after Ivan, we had to go to the FEMA office, which had power and phone service to call the 800 number or sign on the web site to get an appointment at the FEMA office. No walk-ins allowed, by appointment only under the more “efficient” FEMA system.

The word is that FEMA is going to set up 9 distribution points on Puerto Rico. That means that each point will cover an area of about 390 miles² and approximately 378,000 people. People don’t have reliable phone service and there is no Internet at this time, so I guess they will have to walk to the points to sign up.

The disaster preparedness material for hurricanes says to have food and water for 3-7 days. It is more than 10 days since Maria smashed into Puerto Rico, and longer for the Virgin Islands. Obviously if you are not in a state that voted for Trump, you should make it 2 weeks to a month.