SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Thirteen days since Hurricane Maria struck the island territory of Puerto Rico, millions are still without electricity, food and fresh water. Help is on the way, though.
A Crowley container ship from Jacksonville’s JaxPort arrived at the Port of San Juan Wednesday afternoon with hundreds of containers of much needed supplies, but the problem remains. The island is so devastated that truckers can’t get the goods to remote areas.
This is a massive operation. One that the Port of San Juan has never seen before. In these containers, there are about 11,000 of them, vital supplies to keep Puerto Ricans alive. To try to rebuild as quickly as possible. You’re talking about food, water, fuel, electricity and of course, building material so that they can rebuild. And the company that it is behind it all is based in Jacksonville: Crowley.
"It is heartbreaking. It is frustrating," said Jose Ayala, Crowley Maritime, Puerto Rico vice president and general manager. "And it’s challenge me just to know that you have done a great job bringing the kids to calorie count. And I need to say in the government has been working very hard. FEMA on the ground has been working very hard and yet there is much to do. Water. Regardless if it comes from FEMA, regardless if it comes from the supermarket. Medicine is medicine, food is food, and there are so many people in need out there but still today they are going to the shelves, to the supermarkets and they just can’t find a bottle of water. I can’t find a can of food."
The problem is distribution.
"They are sitting in the terminals of San Juan, because the supply chain has been broken," Ayala said. "Because of the devastation of the hurricane. Because of the roadblocks. Because of the communications. Because of the energy. Because the water. Because of the fuel."
Crowley leaders tell me that they have done things they have never had to do before to make room for all the shipments coming into play some point. They are stacking the containers on top of each other, just so they have enough room.
While the FEMA aid has been sent out to the island, they are concerned because a lot of these commercial goods are still stuck here inside these containers. If they can’t empty the containers, then they can’t get them back to the mainland to refill and bring them back here to San Juan. So in the future, that is another crisis in and of itself because they only have so many of these containers to bring in supplies.