Whitefish Energy Holdings, the Montana-based company charged with the critical task of rebuilding Puerto Rico’s decimated power transmission lines, has little history demonstrating its ability to complete the Herculean task for which it was hired. Nevertheless, the company has made significant promises of performance in its brief, two-year lifespan.
Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, FloridaPolitics.com learned the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) — per the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) guidance — has selected a tiny, two-man company with fewer than two years of experience and merely $1 million in annual revenue to repair its massive and critical 230KV electricity transmission line.
On the ground in Puerto Rico nearly two weeks after a hurricane ravaged the island, President Donald Trump heaped praise Tuesday on his administration’s relief workers and, more selectively, Puerto Rican officials after earlier dismissing critics of the federal response as “politically motivated ingrates.”
U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, the first congressman of Puerto Rican heritage from Florida, just landed in San Juan within the hour.
In Puerto Rico’s hurricane-ravaged capital, it seems Carmen Yulin Cruz is everywhere these days: handing out bags of ice, wading through chest-deep floodwaters, hugging people in need of comfort. Cruz has long won attention across the island for her hands-on style of leadership in San Juan. But this week she rose to international prominence as a target of Twitter attacks by U.S. President Donald Trump — including one tweet Sunday calling her and others “politically motivated ingrates.”
From schools to shelters, Florida is readying for an influx of people struggling for food, water and power in hurricane-damaged Puerto Rico.
Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam announced Friday that Puerto Rican students displaced by Hurricane Maria will be able to get free school meals through the National School Lunch Program. That’s “in response to the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico and in preparation for an influx of evacuees,” Putnam’s office said in a release.
