With so many arriving so abruptly, the migration is expected to transform Orlando, a city that has already become a stronghold of Puerto Ricans, many of them fleeing the island’s economic crisis in recent years. The Puerto Rican population of Orlando has exploded from 479,000 in 2000 to well over one million this year, according to the Pew Research Center. The impact of this latest wave is likely to stretch from schools and housing to the work force and even politics. Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens and tilt Democratic, could sway the electoral results of one of the country’s most pivotal swing states.
Local officials and nonprofit groups are already concerned about a scarcity of affordable rental housing in the area, a longtime problem with no quick fix.
They are also worried about the eventual strain on schools, which will need more bilingual teachers to handle a large number of mostly Spanish-speaking students. The area’s two county school districts — Orange and Osceola — have taken in 3,280 new Puerto Rican students since the hurricane, 70 percent of the Florida total, according to district officials.
So far, the Orange County Public Schools district has hired 20 teachers from Puerto Rico, and 10 more are close to being hired, said Barbara Jenkins, the superintendent.
PhotoMs. Garcia comforted her sister-in-law, Yasmeli Santiago. “My mom stayed alone with my brothers,” Ms. Santiago said. “They lost everything, too.” Credit
Eve Edelheit for The New York Times
The local governments will also have to help a steady flow of elderly Puerto Ricans and special needs children whose care and predictable routines were upended.
“We’re one of the fastest-growing regions in the country,” Mayor Teresa Jacobs of Orange County, where Orlando is, said at a recent meeting of state, local and nonprofit officials. “We’ve been handling growth. We just can’t handle it in a matter of weeks.”
From the start, the welcome extended to the evacuees by state and local governments has been generous. In early October, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency to help the state provide services, obtain federal money and streamline rules for things like school enrollment.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
The governor, a Republican and a likely candidate in 2018 for the United States Senate, also established disaster relief centers at the airports in Orlando and Miami so that Puerto Ricans could quickly obtain information about benefits, transportation, jobs, schools and medical care.
The transition has been eased in other ways. Most islanders have moved in with relatives, and many have no plans to return home, Puerto Rican leaders said.
“If I have to start from zero from somewhere, then I would rather do it here than in Puerto Rico,” said Yasmeli Santiago, 28, one of the sisters-in-law who moved in with Ms. Garcia last week.
Newsletter Sign Up
Continue reading the main story
Thank you for subscribing.
An error has occurred. Please try again later.
You are already subscribed to this email.
View all New York Times newsletters.
See Sample
Manage Email Preferences
Not you?
Privacy Policy
Opt out or contact us anytime
But as days and weeks of living with relatives slide into months, frustration over privacy and food costs could easily escalate. Ms. Garcia, who works nights as a cashier at a hotel and moved here three months ago from Boston, will have eight relatives, including a baby, living with her and her three children in a two-bedroom apartment.
Before her relatives arrived, Ms. Garcia, who bought their plane tickets, figured out the living arrangements. She gave up her bed so the two couples could trade off sleeping in her room. The children all pile onto a foldout bed and two bunk beds. The rest, including her, sleep on air mattresses in the living room.
The women will share cooking duties, and while food stamps have been slow in coming, the family has picked up groceries at food pantries. Finding jobs is a priority. Fortunately, the job market is relatively healthy in the Orlando area, where the unemployment rate is 3.2 percent, compared with 4.1 percent in the country over all.
PhotoRita Garcia gathered supplies from the Puerto Rico Family Response Center at Latino Leadership’s headquarters in Orlando. Credit
Eve Edelheit for The New York Times
“I am ready for this,” Ms. Garcia said of the jumble of people in her home. “I think we are O.K.”
Others are not as fortunate as Ms. Garcia’s relatives. More than 1,100 Puerto Ricans were staying in Florida hotels as of Nov. 14. But with peak tourist season fast approaching — Orlando gets 68 million visitors a year — rates are climbing, and the new arrivals will soon have to find more permanent places to stay.
“If they are not finding a house, or hotel, or need to find some independent living, we need to make sure we don’t have a crisis situation,” said Ms. Jacobs, the Orange County mayor. “The situation could deteriorate quickly.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
But so far, no plan has emerged.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will not bring in mobile trailers, said Daniel Llargues, a spokesman, something it did on a small scale in Florida after Hurricane Irma. The agency also provides rental assistance. Beyond that, long-term housing is a local issue. The situation is so dire that at a recent round table there was talk of buying an abandoned motel to house people.
Representative Darren Soto, an Orlando congressman of Puerto Rican descent, said new apartment rental units are being built at a brisk pace. But there are not enough, and only some will offer low rents. Until more units are ready, he said, “we will have to be vigilant to make sure no one falls off their housing.”
Some Puerto Rican community leaders are encouraging the newcomers to head north to New York or Philadelphia, where state benefits are more robust and there are fewer new arrivals.
“The reality is these families are here, and we put out the welcome mat, so now it is our responsibility that their transitions are seamless,” said Marucci Guzmán, the executive director of Latino Leadership, a grass-roots group in Orlando that has helped hundreds of newly arrived Puerto Ricans. “This is not the land of Mickey Mouse, and the streets aren’t paved with gold.”
Even for those who have found a safe place to land, the heartbreak of leaving the island remains.
As her three children played in the living room of her sister-in-law’s apartment, Ms. Santiago said the last two months had been excruciating. Her rental house in Humacao, a badly hit municipality near where the hurricane made landfall, was inundated with thigh-high water. A house she was building was also wrecked, taking her investment along with it. She lost her job at a hotel that still has not reopened and her husband, who worked at a luxury hotel, El Conquistador, could not wait the months that it would take to reopen.
“Outside the house,” she said, “the water was to my neck.
“We lost everything.”
But now there are new losses to endure, she said. Her mother and her two teenage brothers had to stay behind.
“My mom stayed alone with my brothers,” Ms. Santiago said. “They lost their roof, their doors. They lost everything, too. I am filled with worry now about the fact they stayed, and so it’s very difficult.”
Tesla finally took the wraps off its long-anticipated electric semi-truck late Thursday, a truck that Elon Musk said would blow people’s minds into an “alternate dimension.”
The question now, analysts say, is whether Elon Musk’s ambition to transform the commercial trucking industry is feasible.
After acknowledging his company’s struggles to produce the Tesla 3, its first mass-market electric sedan, and dealing with allegations of unfair workplace conditions, Musk was back to doing the one thing he does better than perhaps anyone else in Silicon Valley: making big, dreamy, promotion-filled promises that have a way of bringing his dynamic vision of the future to life.
“What does it feel like to drive this truck?” Musk asked the audience, shortly after his latest creations rolled onto the stage. “It’s amazing! It’s smooth, just like driving a Tesla.”
“It’s unlike any truck that you’ve ever driven,” he added, noting that Tesla’s big rig puts the driver at the center of the vehicle like a race car, but surrounded with touchscreen displays like those found in the Model 3. “I can drive this thing and I have no idea how to drive a semi.”
Musk also repeatedly noted that his company’s trucks produce zero emissions.
Range anxiety has always been a key concern for anyone who is weighing the purchase of an electric vehicle. Musk sought to reassure potential buyers that the company’s big rigs can match — and surpass — the performance of a diesel engine, which he referred to as “economic suicide.”
Musk did not reveal the truck’s exact price, but argued that a diesel truck would be 20 cents more expensive per mile than Tesla’s electric counterpart, which will be available for purchase in 2019.
A fully loaded Tesla truck moving 60 mph can travel 500 miles on a single battery charge, Musk said. The vast majority of truck routes are less than 250 miles, he said. The truck includes four independent motors, Musk said, and has no gears or transmission, meaning that it will require much less maintenance. He guaranteed the truck will not break down for 1 million miles.
Every truck “has Autopilot as a standard” which Musk claimed will help with safety.
The trucking industry is on the verge of an electric revolution, analysts say, one driven by a desire for greater safety, lower fuel costs and cleaner energy. Freight movement – a category that includes trucks, trains, ships, and planes that carry goods – accounts for 16 percent of all corporate greenhouse gas emissions, which constitutes an enormous carbon footprint, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. On the issue of safety, more than 4,000 people were killed and another 116,000 injured in accidents involving large trucks in 2015, the most recent year statistics were available, according to National Highway Traffic safety Administration.
Sandeep Kar, chief strategy officer of Toronto-based Fleet Complete, which tracks truck movement, told Reuters that about 30 percent of U.S. trucking trips are regional, between 100 to 200 miles. Those regional trips present a unique niche for Tesla if transportation firms conclude that the company can offer them a way to reduce operating costs and emissions.
Musk also said that it won’t take long for the trucks to charge.
“While you’re unloading your cargo, you can charge,” he said, arguing that drivers will need to take a 30-minute break after six or seven hours of driving, giving them a chance to charge the truck. “By the time you’re done with your break, the truck will be ready to go. You will not be waiting for your truck.”
Within hours of the unveiling, Wal-Mart – the world’s largest retailer with a fleet of about 6,000 trucks – announced that the company has ordered five Tesla units in Walmart U.S. and 10 units in Walmart Canada.
Meijer Inc., a Michigan-based grocery chain and J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., an Arkansas logistics company, have also reserved multiple trucks, paying a $5,000 deposit per vehicle, according to Bloomberg.
But not everyone was sold on Musk’s pitch.
Some analysts said they were surprised that Tesla would embark on a new vehicle as the company struggles to roll out their Model 3 sedan, which has been beset by production issues.
Unlike the adoring fans that coughed up a $1,000 deposit for the Model 3, truck buyers will appraise Tesla’s latest vehicle differently, according to Rebecca Lindland, an executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book.
“The biggest challenge Tesla faces with its semi is customers,” she said. “These are business people not fans, and they will need to beconvinced that this truck is better for their balance sheet than existing technology. It probably is, based on the specs provided, but this isn’t necessarily a slam dunk.”
Akshay Anand, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, noted that despite the truck’s “fantastic” specs, Tesla is entering a crowded space with plenty of “longstanding competition.” The question for Anand and other analysts is whether that competition will diminish Tesla’s ability to deliver on the Model 3.
After cheating on U.S. emissions tests for its diesel cars, Volkswagen has decided to invest heavily in new electric vehicles, including an electric truck. The Swedish company Einride has unveiled an cabin-free, electric transport vehicle called the “T-Pod.” The company claims the driverless vehicle can carry up to 20 tons and travel 12 miles on a single charge.
After joining forces with the San Francisco-based startup Otto, Uber has also launched a self-driving truck campaign as well. Uber said its first major milestone was using getting their truck to drive 120 miles to deliver a trailer of Budweiser in Colorado last year, the world’s “first shipment by self-driving truck.”
“Competition is nothing new for Tesla, but they need to ensure they’re not spread too thin as they continue to launch the Model 3, arguably their most important vehicle in their short history,” Anand said.
Near the end of Thursday’s event, Musk surprised the attendees by revealing the latest iteration of the Roadster, which will include a 200-kilowatt-hour battery pack and travel 620 miles on a single charge, Musk said. Tesla produced the Roadster from 2008 to 2012, and the latest version will be available to consumers in 2020.
“The point of doing this is to just give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars,” Musk said. “Driving a gasoline sports car is going to feel like a steam engine with a side of quiche.”
Tesla’s new electric semi-truck is unveiled during a presentation in Hawthorne, Calif. (Reuters)
