In Humacao, a city on the eastern coast just north of where Hurricane Maria’s eye passed, power poles and lines still litter the ground in some areas. PHOTO: ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Six months after Hurricane Maria, as many as 7,000 of the island’s small businesses remain closed

wsj.com - by Arian Campo-Flores - March 19, 2018

 . . . Though economic activity in Puerto Rico has picked up in recent months, businesses large and small are struggling. Electricity woes continue to plague the island, where 91% of power generation has been restored but the grid is prone to sudden outages. Insurance money has arrived slowly, with $1.7 billion paid in residential and business claims as of Jan. 31—about 40% of the expected total, according to the island’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance.

And the market is shrinking as a result of an accelerating exodus of Puerto Ricans fleeing conditions on the island.

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cbsnews.com - February 11, 2018

An explosion and fire at an electric substation threw much of northern Puerto Rico into darkness late Sunday in a setback for the U.S. territory's efforts to fully restore power more than five months after Hurricane Maria started the longest blackout in U.S. history. The island's Electric Power Authority said several municipalities were without power, including parts of the capital, San Juan, but they were optimistic it could be restored within a day as they worked to repair a substation that controls voltage.

The blast illustrated the challenges of restoring a power grid that was already crumbling before it was devastated by the Category 4 hurricane.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Explosion cuts power in Puerto Rico

Residents of San Isidro, P.R., waited for food and water in October. Credit Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by PATRICIA MAZZEI and AGUSTIN ARMENDARIZ - February 6, 2018

The mission for the Federal Emergency Management Agency was clear: Hurricane Maria had torn through Puerto Rico, and hungry people needed food. Thirty million meals needed to be delivered as soon as possible.

For this huge task, FEMA tapped Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past. FEMA awarded her $156 million for the job, and Ms. Brown, who is the sole owner and employee of her company, Tribute Contracting LLC, set out to find some help.

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submitted by John Cooper

cleanegroup.org

Summary:

Researchers from NREL and Clean Energy Group found that placing a monetary value on the ability of solar+storage to avoid losses during grid outages can significantly impact project economics and system design. Using data from Southern California Edison, researchers analyzed the economic case for solar+storage for three customer types (school, office building, and hotel) in Anaheim, California. In each case analyzed, larger PV and battery storage systems were found to be economical when the value of resilience is accounted for.

CLICK HERE - Valuing the Resilience Provided by Solar and Battery Energy Storage Systems

CLICK HERE - CDC - MMWR - Population-Based Surveillance of Birth Defects Potentially Related to Zika Virus Infection — 15 States and U.S. Territories, 2016

time.com - by Alexandra Sifferlin - January 25, 2018

Areas in the United States where Zika spread locally, like Florida and Texas, experienced a spike in birth defects.

According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), areas in South Florida, parts of Texas and Puerto Rico saw a 21% increase in birth defects strongly linked with Zika in the last half of 2016, compared to the first part of the year.

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CLICK HERE - CDC - NEWSROOM RELEASE - More birth defects seen in parts of U.S. with local Zika spread

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Zika Virus in Salivary Glands of Five Different Species of Wild-Caught Mosquitoes from Mexico

mvcac.org - January 25, 2018

Researchers identified three new mosquito carriers of Zika virus in Mexico and say all three are potential vectors of the disease.

Writing in Scientific Reports, the researchers reported isolating Zika virus from the salivary glands of wild-caught female Culex coronator, C.tarsalis and Aedes vexans mosquitoes, as well as other previously reported vectors, including A. aegypti, the primary driver of the recent Zika virus epidemic in the Americas. They also isolated Zika from different body parts of wild-caught female C. quinquefasciatus mosquitoes and whole males from the A.aegypti and C. quinquefasciatus species.

“Our findings strongly suggest that all the species reported herein are potential vectors for [Zika virus],” they wrote.

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This map depicts the general location of the sixteen weather and climate disasters assessed to cause at least one billion dollars in direct damages during 2017.

climate.gov - by Adam B. Smith - January 8, 2018

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) tracks U.S. weather and climate events that have great economic and societal impacts (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions). Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 219 weather and climate disasters where the overall damage costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index, as of December 2017). The cumulative costs for these 219 events exceed $1.5 trillion.

During 2017, the U.S. experienced a historic year of weather and climate disasters.  In total, the U.S. was impacted by 16 separate billion-dollar disaster events including: three tropical cyclones, eight severe storms, two inland floods, a crop freeze, drought and wildfire.

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Beartooth is a handheld device that works with your smartphone to keep you connected when there is no cell service.

Beartooth works as a long range link between you and other Beartooth users. Your phone connects to your Beartooth using Bluetooth, and your Beartooth connects to other Beartooth devices up to 10 miles away over the 900 MHz ISM band.

Download app and pair your Beartooth to your iPhone or Android device. Once connected you can reach other Beartooth users within 10 miles.

https://www.beartooth.com

submitted by Bill Sullivan

usatoday.com - by Daniella Cheslow - January 5, 2018

More than three months after Hurricanes Maria and Irma slammed their island, over a million Puerto Ricans are still without reliable power. But one recent day, Rosa López and José Quiñones finally left those ranks.

It happened when four technicians installed a Tesla Powerwall solar battery pack onto a wall in their suburban San Juan home — a 275-pound white metal beast that can store enough electricity to keep a house running from sunset to sunrise.

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The New York Times - By DEBORAH ACOSTA and NATALIE RENEAU - October 3, 2017

President Trump said Puerto Ricans should be proud of the low death toll after Hurricane Maria. But a tour of the island by Times reporters showed that vast humanitarian and logistical challenges remain.

https://nyti.ms/2yHr8K3

cbsnews.com - by Jonathan Lapook - December 26, 2017

As the holiday season continues, the U.S. is also entering peak flu season. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to 650,000 people worldwide could die from complications of the flu . . .

 . . . It's very early in the flu season but it's shaping up to be a nasty one. Texas is one of 23 states already seeing high flu activity, more than double the number from the week before.

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CLICK HERE - Texas Department of State Health Services - 2017 - 2018 Texas Influenza Surveillance Activity Report

CLICK HERE - CDC - FluView - Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report

CLICK HERE - TEXASFLU.org

FILE PHOTO: An aedes aegypti mosquito is pictured on a leaf in San Jose, Costa Rica February 1, 2016. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate/File Photo

CLICK HERE - STUDY - CDC - EID - Postmortem Findings in Patient with Guillain-Barré Syndrome and Zika Virus Infection

reuters.com - by Julie Steenhuysen - December 13, 2017

A new study sheds light on how the mosquito-borne Zika virus causes a rare neurological condition, and the findings could have implications for companies working on Zika vaccines, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday . . .

 . . . To study the nerve disorder, Dr. Tyler Sharp of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dengue Branch in San Juan and colleagues in Puerto Rico examined the rare case of a 78-year-old man from San Juan who had been infected with Zika in 2016, developed Guillain-Barre and subsequently died.

An autopsy showed inflammation and erosion of the protective sheath known as myelin in two nerves, but no evidence of the Zika virus in nerve cells.

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http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-PUERTORICO-POWER/010051M33MM/USA-PUERTORICO.jpg

The primary transmission lines that criss-cross Puerto Rico are steadily coming back online following Hurricane Maria, with several different contractors responsible for bringing back power.  The island lost all of its power after the storm; it still has a goal to restore 95 percent of power by the middle of December.

Sources: Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority; company reports

C Chan, S DiSavino 6/11/2017

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - New Puerto Rico utility head, same old challenges

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Sources: DOE, Reuters - By Travis Hartman | REUTERS GRAPHICS

Power relief efforts for Hurricane Wilma and Irma were aided by utilities’ ability to access power from utilities in other states through the existing interstate transmission system and the nearby availability of workers to help restore the system. Hurricane Maria knocked out power to all 1.5 million customers in Puerto Rico, and its island locale means it cannot draw on other nearby electrical grids. Additionally, with key infrastructure like ports and airports out of service, workers have been prevented from arriving, and efforts to assess the damage have been much slower.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/STORM-MARIA-POWER/010050ZK27Z/index.html

submitted by Jeff Williams

"Eólica" or wind power plant in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. ICE Group / Twitter

ecowatch.com - by Lorraine Chow - November 21, 2017

Costa Rica has charted another clean energy accolade. So far this year, the Central American country has run on 300 days of 100 percent power generation from renewable energy sources, according to the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE), which cited figures from the National Center for Energy Control. . . .

 . . . Costa Rica currently receives 99.62 percent of its electricity from five renewable sources, the highest proportion since 1987. This year, 78.26 percent of electricity came from hydropower, 10.29 percent from wind, 10.23 percent from geothermal energy and 0.84 percent from biomass and solar. 

Costa Rica has emerged as a global environmental leader, with its frequent 100 percent renewable energy streaks and its 2021 goal of becoming carbon neutral—a deadline set a decade ago.

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