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One day after a judge approved a temporary halt to evictions for Puerto Ricans living in Massachusetts and other states in the wake of Hurricane Maria, families faced confusion and frustration Sunday as they struggled to figure out their next move. Many hurricane evacuees were unaware that a federal judge in Springfield late Saturday night had granted a temporary injunction to stop the Federal Emergency Management Agency from ending its transitional assistance housing program for evacuees until midnight Tuesday.
A judge ordered federal emergency officials to extend vouchers for temporary hotel housing for nearly 1,700 Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees, saying ending the program could cause irreparable harm. Saturday night's decision came shortly after civil rights group LatinoJustice PRLDEF filed a lawsuit seeking relief for the Puerto Ricans, whose federal housing assistance vouchers were set to expire at midnight Sunday, meaning the evacuees could have been evicted from the hotels.
A judge ordered federal emergency officials to extend vouchers for temporary hotel housing for nearly 1,700 Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees, saying ending the program could cause irreparable harm.
In a story June 30 about Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees, The Associated Press reported erroneously that about 2,000 Puerto Ricans are using federal housing assistance vouchers to stay at Florida hotels.
Citing "deficiencies" in federal assistance to Puerto Rican evacuees, a judge ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to extend the temporary hotel voucher program. Hundreds of displaced families in Florida, and nearly 1,700 across the country, could benefit from the temporary court order.
Republican Michael Cloud won the special election Saturday to replace former Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold, comfortably taking a majority of votes to avoid a runoff. Nine candidates from multiple parties competed on the same ballot Saturday.
Saturday marks the last day of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's temporary housing program for nearly 1,800 Puerto Rican survivors of Hurricane Maria. The emergency shelter program currently provides 1,744 families whose homes were severely damaged in the September 2017 storm with hotels and motels free-of-charge on the island, in the District of Columbia and 28 states.
Nearly 1,800 Puerto Ricans who survived Hurricane Maria will be forced to move out Sunday from hotels on the island and the US mainland, where they've lived rent-free on assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "After 10 months of providing emergency shelter through Transitional Sheltering Assistance , FEMA is ending the program on June 30 for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria survivors," the agency said in a statement.
Tom Walker believes his company, DroneUp, can help keep order in the skies while permitting unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, to perform community service. The Chesapeake-based business promotes safety in the use of drones through "continuous education" of its operators, he says.
Hurricane Maria ripped away part of the steel roof from Carmen Lidia Torres Mercado's home in the Puerto Rican capital. Nine months later, she is still relying on a blue plastic tarp to protect her home, even with a new storm season already two weeks old.
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Progressive American politicians must embrace the necessity of dramatic action on climate change as a touchstone. So far, Senator Bernie Sanders has done it the most persuasively, campaigning on addressing climate change, health care, racial justice, and economic inequality as his unvaried quartet of issues, invoked in every speech and backed up with serious legislation that shows a willingness to move with real speed.
This Aug. 26, 2017 photo made available by NASA shows Hurricane Harvey over Texas as seen from the International Space Station. "The collective damage done by Atlantic hurricanes in 2017 was well more than half of the entire budget of our Department of Defense," said MIT's Kerry Emanuel.
Puerto Rico released partial records of the death toll following Hurricane Maria late Tuesday after the government held off from publicizing them. The records show there were 1,427 more deaths in the last four months of 2017 than there were in the average death toll over the previous four years.
FILE PHOTO: Representatives from FEMA speak with a resident of the Staten Island borough neighborhood of New Dorp Beach about registering with the agency for financial assistance to help recover from the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy in New York, NY, U.S., November 15, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo As Hurricane Irma bore down on Florida last September, the top U.S. disaster-response official ordered all hands on deck.
An analysis of federal food aid delivered in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria reveals that much of the food exceeded federal dietary guideline limits for sugar and sodium. Credit: Uriyoan Colon-Ramos After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September of 2017, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began distributing emergency food.
The National Puerto Rican Parade in New York turned into its usual boisterous celebration Sunday, but many participants also saw it as an occasion to express their more somber concerns over the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Along the parade route in the heart of Manhattan, people carried signs with tributes like "New York Stands with Puerto Rico," ''You will not be forgotten" and "Decolonize Puerto Rico."
The National Puerto Rican Parade in New York turned into its usual boisterous celebration Sunday, but many participants also saw it as an occasion to express their more somber concerns over the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Along the parade route in the heart of Manhattan, people carried signs with tributes like "New York Stands with Puerto Rico," ''You will not be forgotten" and "Decolonize Puerto Rico."