![]() In January 2022, only 93 ships remained – 56 tankers, 22 container ships, 9 general cargo ships, and 6 roll-on, roll-off transports. But the Jones Act fleet has steadily declined. Since 2000, containerized cargo has increased by 238 percent to 816 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The act’s intent was to grow and preserve a robust merchant fleet, but in a globalized world the opposite has occurred. ![]() The Jones Act, a section of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires that all ships moving cargo from one US port to another must be US built, crewed, owned, and flagged for “national defense and for the proper growth of…foreign and domestic commerce.” Unknown to me at the time, a legislative anchor was dragging down the disaster response. Telecom companies deployed drones carrying cell antennas. At the same time, private relief organizations like the Red Cross began massive recovery programs. FEMA officials were bribed by corrupt (and inept) electrical grid contractors. Government aid sat abandoned palletized in stacks on runways or locked inside warehouses for years. But scaled-up efforts by other federal agencies brought waste and fraud. The Department of Defense took an early lead, executing missions diverse as aerial photography, emergency route clearance, and strategic airlifts. The federal response generated controversy. Gasoline, lumber, tarps, and generators were virtually unobtainable prices were skyrocketing. I watched an old man hack at downed power lines with a machete. Electricity and cell service were down across the island. Five years ago, I saw it firsthand.Ī private plane flipped upside down in a treetop was the first sign of overwhelming devastation I saw in the aftermath. Today, with Hurricane Fiona’s landfall, it’s sadly apparent that American policy imposes unconscionable costs on the island territory separated by nearly a thousand miles of blue water from the mainland. Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 hurricane, battered Puerto Rico.
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