Fiona, the first major Atlantic hurricane of the season, is bringing heavy rains, high winds and widespread power outages to Puerto Rico. The power grid, which was severely damaged during Hurricane Maria five years ago, failed yesterday afternoon and the entire island lost power — even before Fiona made landfall.
- Plus, the murky road ahead for migrants sent from Texas to Massachusetts.
- And, is the pressure to free Brittney Griner fading?
Guests: Axios' Steph Solis and NBC News' Nicole Acevedo.
Credits: Axios Today is produced by Niala Boodhoo, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Alexandra Botti, Lydia McMullen-Laird, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura, and Ben O'Brien. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at [email protected]. You can text questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.
Go Deeper:
- Hurricane Fiona brings "catastrophic" flooding, power outages to Puerto Rico
- Lawyers for Martha's Vineyard migrants urge Feds to open criminal probe
- Biden met with families of Griner and Whelan at White House
NIALA: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today!
It’s Monday, September 19th.
I’m Niala Boodhoo.
Here’s what we’re covering today: the murky road ahead for migrants sent from Texas to Massachusetts. Plus, is the pressure to free Brittney Griner fading?
But first, Hurricane Fiona tests Puerto Rico’s infrastructure. That’s today’s one big thing.
Transcript
NIALA: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today!
It’s Monday, September 19th.
I’m Niala Boodhoo.
Here’s what we’re covering today: the murky road ahead for migrants sent from Texas to Massachusetts. Plus, is the pressure to free Brittney Griner fading?
But first, Hurricane Fiona tests Puerto Rico’s infrastructure. That’s today’s one big thing.
NIALA: Fiona, the first major Atlantic hurricane of the season is bringing heavy rains, high winds and widespread power outages to Puerto Rico. The power grid, which was severely damaged during hurricane Maria five years ago, failed yesterday afternoon and the entire island lost power even before Fiona made landfall. It's a continuation of years of struggles with the Island's power system. NBC news digital reporter Nicole Acevedo has been covering this since Hurricane Maria. Hi Nicole.
NICOLE ACEVEDO: Hi.
NIALA: Nicole, this is a good time to remind people that at least 3000 Puerto Ricans died after Hurricane Maria and many of those deaths were attributed to a lack of electricity, especially for hospitals. What changes have been implemented to the power grids since Hurricane Maria to try to prevent something like what we saw yesterday?
NICOLE: Well, the reality is that right after Maria, it took more than a year for just the recovery process of the power grid. Right now, even five years since Maria, that's still what's holding up that power grid, sort of that patchwork recovery effort just to get the lights on right after Maria. And Sunday, when Fiona was making landfall in Puerto Rico, you know, it felt a little bit like dejavu. A lot of people in these hospitals were trying to be relocated to other areas where the generators were working and, that's the biggest piece of evidence to show that real progress has not happened when it comes to recovery and reconstruction in Puerto Rico.
NIALA: So, Nicole, I think the obvious question here is what happened to the money that was allocated for fixing infrastructure after Hurricane Maria?
NICOLE: So yeah, the main thing is a lot of the money that has been spent already, it's mostly that recovery process, which is just let's get things patched up so at least we can regain some sort of normalcy. But the real sort of permanent work reconstruction to rebuild infrastructure that is up to standards and, and safe and can withstand natural disasters, it was just a few weeks ago that FEMA approved about $9.5 billion to do that permanent reconstruction that's desperately needed in Puerto Rico. And about 40 projects have been approved, but that doesn't mean that there's shovels on the ground yet.
NIALA: Nicole, you just published a piece on Sunday, looking back on the past five years since Maria and the electrical grid. Now that we're talking about the fact that this grid has gone out even before Fiona made landfall, what are you most concerned about over the next week in Puerto Rico?
NICOLE: Well, LUMA energy, the company that's in charge of the distribution of energy and it's the main one fixing these failing power lines, they already said Sunday that it's gonna take multiple days for that repair to take place. This is the first disaster, the first hurricane that directly hits Puerto Rico since Maria and people are really sitting on the edge of their seats because this is really gonna test if at least public officials on the island really learned their lessons from last time around.
NIALA: Nicole was a New York based reporter for NBC news digital. Thanks, Nicole. I hope your family stays safe.
NICOLE: Thanks.
In a moment, the latest on migrants sent from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
NIALA: Welcome back to Axios Today! I’m Niala Boodhoo.
50 Venezuelan migrants were dropped off in Martha's vineyard. Last week, the flights from Texas were paid by the state of Florida at the direction of Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Lawyers for the migrants have asked the Massachusetts Attorney General and the federal government to open a criminal investigation into the incident.
DeSantis, Texas governor Greg Abbott and Arizona governor Doug Ducey have so far transported more than 10,000 migrants to democratic cities to protest the Biden administration's border policies. Axios local reporter Steph Solis has been on the ground in Martha's vineyard, and is joining us now with the big picture.
Hey Steph.
STEPH SOLIS: Hi. Thank you for having me.
NIALA: Steph, what did you see while you were on Martha's vineyard?
STEPH: I saw dozens of people getting food donations, clothing donations, taking showers, possibly for the first time in several days or longer. I spoke to, several migrants who had arrived on Martha's vineyard. A couple of people told me they thought they were gonna be going to New York. One other individual told me he was headed for Utah. One of them was Pedro Torrealba. He told me all I want is a home. Even if we have to pay rent and a job just to move forward. Because I don't like having anything handed to me.
NIALA: And lawyers are also asking for a criminal investigation now into all of this.
STEPH: Yes. So at this point, lawyers say that, the perpetrators “targeted our clients based on race and national origin in order to make the political point they wanted and exploited this vulnerability to win the trust through false promises”, we don't exactly know what claims they're making in terms of what charges or what laws were violated. They're just saying, there have been some laws violated on the federal level and claiming there have been violations of the Civil Rights Act of Massachusetts. So it's still unclear,
NIALA: And what have we heard from governor DeSantis or governor Greg Abbott who sent migrants to New York and even this weekend to the vice president's home, what are they saying about why they're doing this?
STEPH: So Governor DeSantis said this was clearly an opportunity to point out that Florida is not a sanctuary state and that these migrants were being sent to immigrant-friendly places, but it's worth noting the Massachusetts has some stricter policies when it comes to immigrants than other states. There is no official sanctuary type of law, and so there's sort of this narrative that Massachusetts is this all blue sanctuary state. And that's not entirely true either.
NIALA: Steph, there have been so many headlines about this over the past couple of days. What do you think people need to understand about this story and the big picture here?
STEPH: Things are moving really fast. And understandably, there are efforts to try to label who these individuals are to get a better understanding of what their situations are, what happened to them, to figure out whether they're “illegal aliens” or “undocumented immigrants” or “asylum seekers.” But we don't, it's too early to tell whether where they fall, whether they'll be here with legal immigration status, the legal immigration system is very complicated and it does not move as quickly as a news cycle. And so there are many answers we don't have.
NIALA: Steph Solis is an Axios Boston-based reporter. Thanks for being with us.
STEPH: Thank you.
NIALA: One last story before we go today. The WNBA championships wrapped up last night, with the Las Vegas Aces taking home their first title.
As the WNBA season ends — that’s bringing star Brittney Griner back to mind for many. At the end of last week President Biden met with Griner’s family, and the family of Marine Veteran Paul Whelan, both of whom remain detained in Russia. Earlier in the summer the U.S. announced an offer for a prisoner swap to bring the Americans home. But officials say Russia still has not responded to this offer and for now, negotiations aren’t going anywhere.
That’s it for us today!
I’m Niala Boodhoo - thanks for listening - stay safe and we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning.