Maria Cripples Puerto Rico’s Main Airport, Leaving Thousands Stranded
September 26, 2017 by admin
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—After Hurricane Maria knocked out radar systems and power, the U.S. territory’s main airport is struggling to get thousands of stranded passengers off the island.
Agustín Arellano, chief executive of Aerostar Airport Holdings LLC, which operates the airport, said only about 2,000 passengers are flying out every day despite standby lists that are in the tens of thousands. That is down from an average of 15,000 passengers departing daily prior to Maria.
“Our limitations are airspace, and we are missing radar,” he said. “We are trying to get radar and equipment to be able to have communication with Miami.”
The airport is relying on 21 generators to supply power to the control tower, tower radar, some terminal lighting, navigation equipment and the equipment necessary to screen baggage. There is no air conditioning, Mr. Arellano said, and only one food-and-beverage concession is operating.
The difficulty getting the airport up and running is emblematic of the difficulties across the island. Authorities continue to rescue people isolated after the storm cut across the island, flattening forests, throwing down power lines, destroying roofs, and causing small streams to turn into raging rivers that flooded nearby towns. Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said there have been more than 5,500 rescues.
On Monday, Coast Guard leadership, federal officials and congressional lawmakers met in San Juan with Mr. Rosselló who carried an urgent message of need. “What Puerto Rico is experiencing after Hurricane Maria is an unprecedented disaster. The devastation is vast,” he said. “This is a humanitarian disaster involving 3.4 million U.S. citizens.”
Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday the logistics of getting supplies, equipment and personnel to the airport and ports is challenging. “I think there’s a lot of great needs,” he said. “One is being able to get into the island things needed for rapid recuperation.”
At San Juan’s airport, military and aid flights are arriving daily with critical supplies from power generators to drinking water. But because of those arrivals, only about 10 commercial flights are leaving to the U.S. mainland a day—down from 176 daily flights normally, according to Mr. Arellano. And only five airlines are flying out of San Juan, down from 31 airlines that used the airport before the storm.
resumed limited service to San Juan on Friday, when it sent three flights, all carrying relief supplies like cots, tarps and generators. The airline wasn’t able to send any flights on Saturday, but had one San Juan-bound flight and two return flights on Sunday, said Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the airline. On Monday, American operated one flight to San Juan and back.
“We want to resume more operations and get more flights in there, but it’s a very challenging environment,” Mr. Feinstein said, adding that a typical day for the airline involves roughly 20 flights departing to, and returning from, San Juan.
Three of four radars used by air-traffic controllers, as well as telecommunications systems, sustained damage, Mr. Arellano said. So planes heading to the island can only engage in radio contact with air-traffic controllers when they are within 30 miles, he said.
That means airplanes need to be spaced 100 miles apart—compared with 5 miles apart during normal operations—along dedicated air corridors at specified altitudes for safety reasons.
The Federal Aviation Administration is working to restore radars, navigational aids and other equipment damaged during Hurricane Maria, according to a news release by the agency Monday. Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport handled nearly 100 total arrivals and departures on Sunday, including military and relief operations.
The FAA is transporting replacement systems to the Caribbean by air and sea to restore radar, navigational and communication services, the agency said.
Technicians were trying Monday to reach another long-range radar site at Pico del Este, located atop a mountain in a national park in Puerto Rico, the FAA said. But the final 2 miles to the site wind through rain forest that is impassable, so workers were using chain saws to clear a path for equipment.
In the airport’s passenger terminal, the situation was chaotic. Flights were booked, and rebooked, and rebooked again—only to be canceled. Would-be passengers waited in long lines, many in their own chairs, to try to get on flights that had brought in humanitarian aid.
“I’m here, and it looks as if I won’t be able to get on,” said Joel Rosas after waiting in line Monday. He said he planned to sleep at the airport to be first in line Tuesday for a flight to the U.S.
At the American Airlines counter, José Manuel Teijido, who had been vacationing in Puerto Rico, stood in a long line. “My reservation is worthless,” said Mr. Teijido, who was worried that he would run out of hypertension medicine before being able to return home to Spain.
Delta Air Lines
Inc.
had one flight to San Juan Sunday and two Monday, said Michael Thomas, an airline spokesman. Because of the limited service, the airline has been using larger airplanes to accommodate more passengers, he said.
Mr. Arellano said it would take a long time for the airport to return to normal, but that he expects to see big improvements within the next two weeks.
He was pleased that the airport recovered Wi-Fi and cellphone use on Sunday night. And by Monday afternoon, screening equipment used by the Transportation Security Administration was back in operation, he said.
—Siobhan Hughes contributed to this article.
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and Arian Campo-Flores at arian.campo-flores@wsj.com
Appeared in the September 26, 2017, print edition as ‘Puerto Rico Airport Reels.’
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North Korea says US ‘declared war,’ warns it could shoot down US bombers
September 26, 2017 by admin
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SEOUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) – North Korea has been boosting defenses on its east coast, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said on Tuesday, after the North said U.S. President Donald Trump had declared war and that it would shoot down U.S. bombers flying near the Korean peninsula.
Tensions have escalated on the Korean peninsula since North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3, but the rhetoric has reached a new level in recent days with leaders on both sides exchanging threats and insults.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said Trump’s Twitter comments, in which the U.S. leader said Ri and leader Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer” if they acted on their threats, amounted to a declaration of war and that Pyongyang had the right to take countermeasures.
Yonhap suggested the reclusive North was in fact bolstering its defenses by moving aircraft to its east coast and taking other measures after U.S. bombers flew close to the Korean peninsula at the weekend.
The unverified Yonhap report said the United States appeared to have disclosed the flight route of the bombers intentionally because North Korea seemed to be unaware. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service was unable to confirm the report immediately.
Ri said on Monday the North’s right to countermeasures included shooting down U.S. bombers “even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country”.
“The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” he told reporters in New York on Monday, where he had been attending the annual United Nations General Assembly.
“The question of who won’t be around much longer will be answered then,” he said.
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White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders denied on Monday that the United States had declared war, calling the suggestion “absurd”.
RISK OF MISCALCULATION
U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighter jets flew east of North Korea in a show of force after a heated exchange of rhetoric between Trump and Kim over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, which Trump has said he will never allow.
The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce and not a peace treaty.
The Sept. 3 nuclear test prompted a new round of sanctions on North Korea after the Security Council voted unanimously on a resolution condemning the test.
The North says it needs its weapons programs to guard against U.S. invasion and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, South Korea and Japan.
However, the rhetoric has been ratcheted up well beyond normal levels recently, raising fears that a miscalculation by either side could have massive repercussions.
Trump’s threat last week to totally destroy North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it threatened the United States or its allies led to an unprecedented direct statement by Kim in which he called Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and said he would tame the U.S. threat with fire.
White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster defended Trump’s rhetoric and said on Monday he agreed that the risk was that Kim might fail to realize the danger he and his country were facing.
However, McMaster also acknowledged the risks of escalation with any U.S. military option.
“We don’t think there’s an easy military solution to this problem,” said McMaster, who believed any solution would be an international effort.
“There’s not a precision strike that solves the problem. There’s not a military blockade that can solve the problem,” McMaster said.
China, North Korea’s sole major ally and largest trading partner, has called for calm and dialogue, while world leaders such as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the only solution to the crisis was a political one.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi said Beijing wanted the situation “to calm down”.
“It’s getting too dangerous and it’s in nobody’s interest,” Liu told Reuters in New York.
Reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Michelle Nichols in NEW YORK; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Michael Perry