美国国家公共电台 NPR FEMA Begins Scaling Back Financial Assistance In Puerto Rico

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

Eleven months after Hurricane Maria devastated¹ Puerto Rico, the island is no longer in a state of emergency. That's according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And because of that, FEMA has started cutting back its financial assistance. NPR's Adrian Florido has spent the past couple of months reporting from Puerto Rico. He's in San Juan now. Good morning, Adrian.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE²: Good morning, Noel.

KING: All right. So FEMA says the emergency in Puerto Rico is over. What does that mean for Puerto Rico, exactly?

FLORIDO: Well, what FEMA says it means is that the agency thinks that the island's sort of urgent, immediate³ needs have been met. It was just this week, for example, that the government here said that it had finished restoring power to the island. One example. A lot of the roads and bridges that were damaged or washed out have been repaired or at least patched up. Downed trees and branches and other debris⁴ has mostly been cleared away, hazardous⁵ spills cleaned up. Hospitals are generally up and running. And this isn't to say that things are perfect here - far from it, in fact. But when FEMA comes to a place after a disaster, there's generally an emergency response phase to the response, and then there is a recovery phase. Now, what FEMA says is that Puerto Rico is now in that recovery phase. Another sign of this is that after the storm, FEMA opened all these offices across the island to help people apply for help. And this week, it started announcing the closure of a lot of those offices.

KING: That's interesting. OK. So moving into a recovery phase. What does that mean for the way that FEMA spends money or is spending money in Puerto Rico?

FLORIDO: So since the hurricane, FEMA has been paying a hundred percent of the cost of much of the emergency work that's been done here, things like, again, power restoration, debris pickup⁶, emergency road repairs, water testing. And earlier this summer, Puerto Rico's government asked FEMA to keep picking up the full tab. But earlier this week, FEMA said no. The agency denied the governor's request and said that now Puerto Rico will have to start pitching in. Listen to what Mike Byrne, the top FEMA official in Puerto Rico, said on a call.

MIKE BYRNE: So it's not that we're walking away. It's just that the early part, where emergency needs were required and we were able to provide a hundred percent cost share for that, we've done that and we believe that we're at the end of that period. And we've just let the governor know about that.

FLORIDO: So like he said, he said that FEMA is not walking away completely. And he said that FEMA will continue to pay 90 percent of the cost of this recovery work, and that Puerto Rico will now be responsible for 10 percent. And FEMA estimates that could come out to about a hundred-million dollars that Puerto Rico will have to shell out between now and whenever this, you know, disaster declaration is declared officially over.

KING: That's a lot of money for an island that got hit hard. What does Puerto Rico's government say about that?

FLORIDO: Well, the officials here were not thrilled about that decision. The official in charge of Puerto Rico's Office of Recovery sent me a statement saying that the government is going to appeal FEMA's decision. And he said something that officials here often allude⁷ to when they're talking about how the federal government treats and has responded to Puerto Rico after the storm. He said that he would continue to fight for the, quote, "equal treatment to which all of the island's U.S. citizens are entitled."

KING: OK. Very pointed⁸ statement. You know exactly what he meant by that. What did he mean?

FLORIDO: Well, he didn't elaborate on it, but it could be a reference to the fact that after Hurricane Katrina, for example, FEMA paid a hundred percent of the emergency recovery costs in Louisiana and Mississippi until that disaster was over. First FEMA did it through extensions, and eventually Congress passed a law so that FEMA could continue to pay a hundred percent. That's something that obviously hasn't happened in Puerto Rico, at least not yet.

KING: I mean, FEMA is an emergency response agency. So what role does it typically play in in, like, longer-term recovery?

FLORIDO: So it's shifting a lot of its attention now to some longer-term recovery projects, especially on things like the energy grid⁹, improving the energy grid. Puerto Rico also has a lot of money coming from sources that are not FEMA. It has about $20 billion on the way from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, grants for the emergency response that HUD has approved. That's money that Puerto Rico plans to use for all kinds of longer-term improvements and repairs, including rebuilding damaged homes. And it's also earmarked some of that money for possible use to cover its share of these emergency expenses that FEMA is going to stop paying, and that's actually another reason that Mike Byrne, the head of FEMA here, said that the agency had made this decision to stop paying a hundred percent.

KING: NPR's Adrian Florido in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Thanks, Adrian.

FLORIDO: Thank you, Noel.

1 devastated   

v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的

参考例句：

• The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city. 这颗炸弹炸毁了旧城的一大片地方。
• His family is absolutely devastated. 他的一家感到极为震惊。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

4 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

5 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

6 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

7 allude   

v.提及，暗指

参考例句：

• Many passages in Scripture allude to this concept.圣经中有许多经文间接地提到这样的概念。
• She also alluded to her rival's past marital troubles.她还影射了对手过去的婚姻问题。

8 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

9 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。