>> narrator: tonight, seven months after hurricane maria hit puerto rico, "frtline" and npr's laura sullivan investigate the story of two storms. >> is this really the best that f.e.m.a. can do? narrator: one decimated the island... >> if there's a villain here, it's the 190 mile an hour winds and the 50 inches of rain. >> narrator: ...the othe i devastated economy. >> the government of puerto ricu waas a big ponzi scheme. >> now puerto rico owes more than $70 billion. >> who gets left paying the bill? >> the banks get out and everybody else gets stuck with the bill. >> narrator: tonight, on "frontline"... >> is seven months for power threstoration the best tha corps can do? >> with the challenges we had, i think it was the best the

corps could do. >> narrator: "blackout in puerto rico". >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. anby the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, ted to building a more just, verdant and peacefulorld. more information is available at macfound.org. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide, at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation: committed to excellence in journali. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues.jo th and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that forms and inspires. and by the frontline journalismm fund, wior support from jon and jo ann hagler.

(rain pouring, thunder rumbling) (man speaking spanish): (woman speaking spanish): (man speakg spanish):

(woman speaking spanish): (man speaking spanish): (thunder rumbling) (wind whipping) >> looki live at the hurricane slamming the island as we speak... >> maria's massive size dwfing the island... >> oh, my god! >> no part of it spared. >> prayers are needed.au >> lra sullivan: hurricane maria barreled into puto rico last september, the worst stormi to hit tsland in 90 years. >> the region was still rebounding from the last storm, irma, when maria rolled in.

>> this storm was a tropical storm that all of sudden in a span of 36, 48 hours, became a category-five hurricane. >> the winds are ferocious right now. >> 1 miles an hour... >> ripping buildings apart. sp(man and woman speaking ish) >> i was wored about flooding. >> nine- to 11-foot storm surge, upwards of two feet rainfall. >> and i was wored about overall damage in infrastructure and the capability we're going to have to communicate after the storm. >> sullivan: thousands sought refuge in local shelters. the largest was the roberto clemente coliseum inan juan. >> i remember looking at people, and i knew that there was gonna be nothing when they went outside. no electricity, no wer. and i knew then that there were people that we weren't gonna be able to get to. and it ithe cries that went

unheard that still haunt me at night. >> we survivedaria. we survived maria. >> sullivan: as the island triet to pick up pieces... >> it's hard. we lost evything. >> sullivan: ...the force of th storm parent. >> it's horrible, you can't do justing, and you' waiting. >> please do something! >> sullivan: but the extent of the damage wouldn't be known for days. >> once you went inland, it looked like a bomb hit puerto rico. it looked like a war zone. complete destruction. everything was brown instead of green. the infrastructure, the electrical infrastructure in erto rico, was severely destroyed. s livan: maria left the entire island without power. and a thousand miles from the mainland, marshalling help would

this is the most logistically challenging event the united states has ever seen. and we have been moving and pushing as fast as the situation allows. >> sullivan: two weeks later,e esident touched down to survey the situation. >> i think that the job of the first responders has been something like i've ner seen before. >> sullivan: and he sized up the response. >> i say we got an a-plus in texas, we got an a-plus in florida, and we may have done our best work here, but it hasn't been appreciated. >> sullivan: the president said... >> flashlights. you don't need them ymore. >> sullivan: ...everything was unr control. >> fema says it has the supplies it needs. >> there's a lot of good things happening. >> it is really a good news story. >> sullivan: but there was mounting evidence that all was not going as the government claimed. >> they are in stifling heat, they have no water, they have no electricity. >> thousands of cargo containers sitting therfull of supplies but not delivered. >> damn it, this is not a good news story. >> sullivan: it was a complicated story. and as we vestigated over the next seven months, we would

discover that the devastation in puerto rico and the trouble recovering were due to forces far beyond just the wrath of the storm. 2017 was a year of disaster unlike any other. i'd been to houston after harvey and traveled through florida after irma. the storms had ripped apart communities and lives. >> she doesn't know what she's wing to do. >> sullivan: butt i'd seen didn't prepare me for what i would find in puerto rico. four weeks after mariawe joined the military to see how well the recovery was going. we headed to towns along the northeast coast, areas where the hurricane had hit hard. we were surprised fend the military were still struggling to provide the most basic needs.

a month in, still delivering emergency supplies. what are you seeg as the most done right now? that has to get >> the short term from my perspective is really all about water. we've been distributod, but many places have plenty of food, but people need clean water to be able to drink and survive. >> sullivan: i thought you were going to say power. >> power's theong term. power's related to everything because the water pris directly related to lack of electricity. >> sullivan: it was a continuing crisis, according the local mayor in luquillo. what do you need to make the water work? >> we just need electric generator. >> sullivan: how many generators? >> just seven.n: >> sulliou need seven generators and you can provide water for all of your people? >> for all our p right.hat's >> sullivan: but, it turns out, those generators were nowhere to be found. >> they're hard to get. we had hurricanes in texas and florida. ey have to be specifically ordered, they have to be engineered and created in the states or somewher

so all of that's taking longer than everybody would like, but it's because of e two other hurricanes, and because it's an island. >> sullivan: we heard that a lot, the logistical challenges of getting help to puerto rico. and traveling from town to town, we saw the hardship of those delays, a third of the island still wiout running water. what are you hearing about when you might get water? >> (speaki spanish) >> sullivan: entire lives piled high in roadside rubbish. ¡hola! nearly half a million homes damaged or destroyed (speaking spanish): >> sullivan: it's ruins. 80 percent of the island remained in the dark, and as families waited for help... a oh, my god, lothis. ...they were living in homes that were shells of what they once were. as e tried to figure out why the recory was taking so long,

we headed to the eastern mountains, whe we found the man tasked with turning the lights back . how many homes in puerto rico are you guys powering? >> we're trying to power the entire island. >> sullivan: jose sanchez is with the army corps of engineers.ho he wased at what he'd found-- not just the number of power poles that went down... t >> we'king 60,000 poles. >> sullivan: you have to replace 60,000 poles? >> that's our estimate. >> sullivan: ...but also the condition of the entire electr grid. >> it's the worst i've seen. >> sullivan: ever? >> in my 22 years as an engineer. ng>> sullivan: where did t break down here? >> it was very weak. even before the storms. you have generation issues, we had power line issues, we have age of the infrastructure issues, so all of those things create the problem we have now. >> sullivan: tt problem was strikingly visible at the island's aging power plants, stke this one, palo seco, outside of san juan.

>> these power plants, which are obviously the heart of the system, they're the ones who pump out the blood, if you will. >> sullivan: palo seco's been r pumping out electricity re than 50 years, and sanchez found that its upkeep had been neglected for decades. is this thing going to break? >> without a doubt, this systems ery fragile, there's a lot of conditions that are related to lack of investment. the infrastructure of the entire system is really in bad ndition. >> sullivan: like what? >> you can see there's a lot of rust on the parts. there's elements that have not been replaced in years. there's literally just lk of operations and maintenance investments. puerto rico is in dire- not only power plants, but a reconstruction of the grid itself. >> slivan: and it wasn't jus the power grid. we saw vital infrastructure all over the island-- water pumping stations, bridges, levees, roads-- also starved for upkeep and investment, leaving puertoul ricorable to the one thing

that was sure to come: a major orm. the more time we spent here, the more it became clear that maria was a story about two disasters-- one natural, one man-made-- and theulmination of widespread neglect that traces back more than a century. ♪ >> the timeless surf pounds thil caribbean she of what christopher columbus dubbed "el puerto rico"-- the rich port. >> sullivan: the united states took possession of puerto rico in 1898, a conquest of the spanish-american war. >> this is whethe united states thought to expand its sphere of influence. and some people call it the imperial period. to they wenanama. they expanded through latin america, so puerto ricwas sort of a military base for strategic reasons. >> sullivan: the u.s. wanted the island, but was less

certain about its people. >> there were explicitly racial theories as to why puerto rico should not be allowed the same rights, because we were not fit, quote-unquote, for self-government. the supreme court put it in a very succinct way. puerto rico belongs to but is not part of the united states. so it's like your wallet. your wallet bengs to you, but it's not part of you, right? so we're essentially property, and that decision is still good law. >> sullivan: from early on, puerto ricans were given u.s. citizenship, but not full constitutional rights. they serve in the military, but can't vote for preside under tax law, puerto rico is a foreign entity. yet under maritime law, it's part of the u.s. >> over the years, the onent domiheme in the relationship between puerto rico and the unit states is the inconsistency of american policy towards the territory. >> sugarcane, backbone of the

island's economy... >> sullivan: for decades, american companies profited from the island's cheap labor supply, sd tourists flocked to it beautiful beaches. >> welco to puerto rico. s,u'll enjoy native barbec golf, tennis, swimming, or relaxing and enjoying the sights. >> sullivan: but less seen waso' puerto ricdeep poverty. >> puerto rico, known as the poor house of the caribbean. >> many people find it uncomfortable to admit or to accept the fact that the united states actually had colonies at some pnt, and some people say they still have, in the case of puerto rico, and i thinkeep down it goes against the grain of the american character, the whe idea of having citizen with a different set of rights, you know? in general, it's very strange. >> sullivan: in e 1970s, the economy was struggling.

congress created a special tax t break to attract investm the island. it was called 936. companies that did business in puerto rico could avoid paying taxes on their earnings. it sparked an influx of manufacturing and jobs, and helped build a mide class. but the economic boom wouldn't last. in 1996, washington ended the tax break. >> when that 936 tax credits were phased out, the industry started cutting jobs. and the tax base of the puertoen rico goverwas eroded. and as that happened, they needed to either reduce the size of the government or borrow money. >> sullivan: with itonomy heading into recession, the government's efforts to cut spending created an upar. so insad, it kept borrowing money to cover its defits, with one governor after the next piling up more andore debt. so from 2006 to 2014, what was

that like here? >> it was crazy. the government was borrowing at an incredible clip. >> sullivan: so the debt is getting higher and higher. >> higher and higherand the ability... >> sullivan: and the economy is shrinking. >> yeah, is shrinking.we aid, "look, we cannot tell you at what point the music's going to stop, but we can tell you the music will stop at some point. this thing is not sustainable. this is going to explode." (car horns honking) >> sullivan: the cycle of constant borrowing relied on a place i didn't expect to be going for a story about maria--o ne city. that's where puerto rico found a financial lifeline in the whmunicipal bond market, o insiders call muniland. >> muniland compared to the general financial market is like a backwater. it's very slow. most othe bonds are very secure. there's almost no risk of default, so they're appropriate r, you know, your child' college account or your grandmother's retire

account. >> sullivan: bonds are i.o.us. people buy them and they get paid back later with interest. and municipal bonds are a common way states and raise money they need. it's become a huge market-- $3.l trillionast year. and because puerto rico isn't a state, it has a special advantage in selling its bonds. >> a new yorker can't buy a california bond and exempt the tax. puerto rico can sell their bonds all across america and everybody gets tax exemption on e interest. >> sullivan: does that make puer rican bonds very attractive? iv highly attractive. >> sullivan: attrato investors for their tax benefits, and they were relatively safe. and also attractive banks, which put the deals ndgether. and then sell the to investors, like pensions and mutual funds. >> fund managers, they will not admit this now, but when puerto rico was selling debt like pancakes, they loved puerto rico debt.

why? because you would put in these puerto rico bonds into your portfolio and since they had slightly higher interest rates and no taxes attached to them,yo immediately looked like a genius, right? you just bumped up the entire liturn for the entire port that's your bonus, right? that's your new mercedes, your new yacht. >> sullivan: but in time, these bonds would becomeri sungly risky, and there were signs that this wasn't going to end well for puerto rico or investors. we reached out to major banks involved in putting puerto rican bond deals together. none would agree to an interview. haanybody come forward fro inside these banks to talk about what was really going on?o, >>ut it's a very close-knit world in wall street, and the tendency is just to keep quiet and keep working. li >>van: in a small office building in san juani found a former bank insider from that close-knit world. he's speaking publicly

for the first time about wall street's role in th island's economic demise. for more than 25 years, he worked with u.b.s.,t the biggalth management firm on the island. >> i have to get this. (speaking spanish)n: >> sulliis name is carlos capacete, and he rose through the ranks to run the bank's largest office in erto rico. >> okay, bye. >> sullivan: oy, so take me back to the '90s. what was it like at that time? >> iwas great. all the new york banks were here in puerto rico. there was a lot of activity. there was money flowin i was managing about a $3 billion book. >> sullivan: capacete spent mose of his carworking here, along what's called e "golden mile," where all the big business and banking deals get done. >> all the major banks in new york would come to puerto rico on a regular basis to pitch deals, and they'd bring in, "listen, we can do an additional

200 million, an additional 500 million." and that's how the deficit was financed, with all these additional monies. >> sullivan: so what's in it for the banks? g what do th out of it? >> on a pical deal, the investment bankers will charge a a structured fee, an administrative fee, and allfe these othe to get the deal done. then the banks would go and selh e bonds and make a commission. >> sullivan: that sounds like a long le of people that can make some money. >> this is kind of like a money-making machine. you're..as long as there are transactions coming and going, the banks and the financial advisers are making money. they're making a ton of money. >> sullivan: but there were other lucrative deals getting done here, too, not just between the government and the banks, but also between the banks and ordinary investors. you must be ram. i'm laura sullivan, nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. tosullivan: pilar, ni meet you. for more than 30 years, ram

lamba and his wife, pilar, were university professors. they'd regularly saved money for retirement, and in 2004, ram was offered an investment opportunity with u.b.s. oh, how beautiful. >> i met this young fellow atid u.b.s., who "listen, why don't you put this money in the puerto rican bonds?e these bonds otected by the constitution of puerto rico." i iid, "my god, what else c ask for, you know?" >> sullivan: and the clouds roll in... reter a number of years, he moved all his rent savings to u.b.s., more than $350,000. and then in 2011, his broker made him an offer. >> he said, "i can give you a collateral ln for a million dollars." >> sullivan: he said, "i'm goinv toyou a million-dollar loan"? >> a loan, and, "you invest that omoney in more bonds, pue rican bonds, and then..." >> to buy more bonds. >> buy more. >> sullivan: and buy more bonds. an that's right, and i said, "i don't think iandle that.

let's go to half a million." >> sullivan: what were thoughts when he proposed this idea to you? >> that this is something unique. isreally made it for my retirement, and s great. >> sullin: what ram lamba says he didn't know is that u.b.s. had invested his money into special bond funds that were riskier than what's allowed on the mainland. and, that inside the bank, concer were growing that those funds were in trouble, yet u.b.s. kept pressing brokers to sell them... >> there was some hardline tactics to sell the funds. you know, like, "go out and get them. let's go. you got to sell these funds." they were just trying to push the bond funds to whoe whoever had a heartbeat.ar orns honking) >> sullivan: capacete says he t wind of a secret trick some brokers had devised to boost bond sales and skirt bank policies. it involved loans.

>> one day this client comes up to me and tells me, "hey, you know what? are you aware of what they'rein in this other branch?" and i said, "tell me." and he told me the scheme. they were taking out tn. the advisewas telling them to take theoney to a local bank. >> sullivan: a different bank. >> a different bank.er keep it for one or two weeks. bring back a similar amount andt use buy more puerto rico bond funds. they were kind of like washing the money. >> sullivan: okay. >> it is unethical. it's against the bank's regulations, and it ts the client in a really, really tough risk situation. c >> sullivaacete complained to u.b.s. managers, but heard nothing. and then, finally, after nearly a year, he got a visit from u.b.s. compliance officers in the u.s.

heays they called him into a conference room and said g ey'd found no evidence that brokers were misusans. >> and i jumped up and i said, "you're kidding, right?" you know, this... this... you know, "this is a joke?" and i said, "what did you do?" and one of them, she was very..e and i remember words, you know, said, "what would you have done?" >> sullivan: she said that to you? bi and i stood up and i told her, "look at thaccounts and follow the money. that's all you have to do. >> sullivan: why do you think the bank would want to turn a blind eye to something like this? >> because it was profitable and i was the one that was... how... in spanish, we say, "arruinando la fiesta." i was the one that was spoiling their party. >> sullivan: that party ended in 2013.

there were growing concerns that the government couldn't pay back all the bond debt it had taken on. the value of pueo rican bonds began to plummet. ram lamba eventually got a call .into his broker's office it was about that half a million d llar loan. >> he said, "i nat money back." i said, "what do you mean, you need that money back? i don't have that kind of money." and he said, "day after tomorrow." i said, "what? in two days, i have to pay?" when i told her, we were both ih k. >> sullivan: he was given a week to pay back the loan.on but asprices kept falling, he says he lost much of his retirement savings. >> they knew these bonds were no good, and they were seing it. they deceived so many people. it's not my fault, you s, that they were doing this hanky-panky thing, buthey played with me. they played with my sentiments, see, and that's what i don't like. >> sullivan: u.b.s. declined to be interviewed, but pointed a

separate case where the s.e.c. found it didn't mislead its clients. the bank said the loan terms were disclosed, and its investigation found one broker violated u.b.s.ci po. as for its former employee, carlos capacete, it called him disgruntled and said he'd sued the company. though they didn't acknowledge wrongdoing, u.b.s. and fr other banks were fined by regulators for practices that failed to protect theiric puerto r clients. billions of dollars of wealton the island had been wiped out. and after years of rampant borrowing, the govnment's financial viability was being wiped out, too.pi the island wasling toward default. >> seven years of recession, chronic deficits, lots of borrowing. now puerto rico owes more than $70 billion. >> the government's story was always, "we're going to reduce the spending this year," right? "we're going to raise more money," you know? "we're going to get this under control.

, ll, they never did. >> unfortunatelythe government of puerto rico was run as a big ponzi scheme. and what you had was eentially a ack box of a government running that had no clarity as to what was beinborrowed and what was being spent. >> sullivan: by early 2014, puerto rico's bonds had been downgraded to junk status, but the gornment, desperate once again, turned to muniland. >> we've hired plenty of good financial advisers. >> sullivan: and despite the island's economic woes, bankers raised $3.5 billion, mostly from hedge funds. it was the largest bond offering of its kind in u.s. history. >> would you put this bond in your mother's portfolio? >> of course.>> eally? >> yes. >> there's a famous picture at morgan stanley of the entire puerto rico financial team celebrating. they had their hands up, they were smiling. you could tell from the body language. i said, "i don't know exactl what we are celebrating here. this is not good."

>> sullivan: the celebration didn't last long. just 15 months later... >> late today puerto rico, he to nearly four million americans, defaulted on its largest debt payment so far. >> we're calling it america's greece, and for very good reons. the fact is puerto rico, yes, they have just run out of other people's money. >> let me put this verr: we are out of cash. >> so chapter nine... >> sullivan: within a year, congress put puerto rico on a path to bankruptcy and under the financial control of an oversight board. but we kept wondering, why would the banks do a $3.5 billiodeal with an island on the verge of default? the bank said they were trying to help puerto rico manage its finances. but we talked to half a dozen people who either worked on the deal or were close to it what they said, is that this deal seemed to be moreth just a bond deal. it was also an exit strategy for the banks. none of those we talked to would agree to go on camera. and then, we finally found one

former bond broker who would. >> i started back in 1983 in wall street. >> sullivan: axel rivera was at morgan stanley when the record 2014 bond deal was done. he says that as the island got closer and closer to default,nk were getting nervous. what were you told specifically ab bankers that you worked with at morgan stanlet why they did the deal? >> they wanted to try to get as much as they could of their exposure out of their books. >> sullivan: your colleagues at morgan stanley... >> yes. >> sullivan: ...toldou that they had exposure to risk at that time? >> that they had much what they wanted, and they needed to unwind that. >> sullivan: that exposure w huge. we discovered the banks had hundreds of millions of dollarsu tiin puerto rican debt and bond documents show almost a quarter of this deal went to pay them back -- nearl million dollars-- to pay back loans, pay fees or eotminate r risk for banks directly involved.he

>> sullivan:needed the 2014 bond to get them out? >> that is correct. >> sullivan: then who gets left paying the bill? >> the bond holders, whomever they are the banks get out, and everybody else gets stuck with the bill. >> sullivan:one of the banks that put the deal together would agree to an interview. but a few of them sentat stents noting that, "the government of puerto rico approved the bond," and that the banks didn't have "any influence over" how the government used the bond proceeds. morgan stanleyone of the lead banks, told us the terms of the deal were "fully disclosed to investors" and it "extended an additional $250 million in credit" topu to rico 8 months after the bond. boill, investors in the 2014 deal and many othe deals over the years, have been left trying to get their money back, like ram lamba, who's suing u.b.s. so the fear, then, is that you would lose this place? >> yeah. >> sullivan: do you guys think

you'll ever get your money back? >> i don't think so. i don't think we'll ev that money back. you strangle yourself thinking about, "why did .. what did i do?" and i tell her i think my karma are no good. >> sullivan: you think that?ev >> if you bein karma, and law of karma, in some other lifei must have made somethi wrong, because i don't recollect, to be very honest with you, that in this life i did anything to hurt anyone. >> in puerto rico, the crisis is"look at what the puerto ricans did." wall street-- nobody talks about wall street, or very few people talk about what wall street did. and i suppose i'm part of wall street. i don't know. but the bonds that were sold that created the huge $74 billion bond debt in puerto rico, was sold using all the

investment bankers in wall street. th would come down and pit the deals and they knew they were doing deficit financing and they knew at they were increasing that amount, and they knew that the economy s shrinking, and if the banks b would han responsible, and would have said, "hey, listen, you can't borrow this amount sot we're oing to limit this to that," we wouldn't be in this place right no >> sullivan: the debt crisis had left the island dangerously vulnerable. basic services and infrastructure had been chronically neglected. morehan ever, puerto rico needed a federal government ready to help. but in the many trips we madeia here after mwe began to realize not only was the island edunprepared, so was the fal government.

four months after the storm, we found a community doing what it could to try and rebuild. (horn honking) and we met one of its leaders, jossie lozada. (conversing in spanish) she'd taken it on herself to set up a relief center, handing out donated clothes right in front of where her house used to be. ni >> (speaking s): >> sullivan (speaking spanish) >> (speaking spanish)ul >> svan: oh, no. >> (speaking spanish): >> sullivan: (gasps) that's your kitchen? it didn't look like it, but jossie is actually one of the lucky storm survivors. did you get any help from the federal government? >> sullivan: fema had given her

its maximum amount ofsi ance, $33,300, enough for her to rebuild her home.th buamounts fema has handed out havearied. how about your friend?mu how did your friend get? >> sullivan: so far, only half of those who applied for fema help are getting any. that's largely because people don't have the property records the ency requires. >> sullivan: when you said that part of you, it makes you angr what is it that makes you angry, feel angry?

>> sullivan: the months of waiting for help were taking a ll in communities all across the island. >> a lot of people in this community, even though we're very close to san juan, haven't received aistance yet. >> sullivan: on one of our trips, we met alice thomas... >> and we can talk to her andas her why that is. >> sullivan: ...an expert on disaster response with refugeesa internat this is her house here? >> this is her house here. >> sulliva we joined her as she visited storm victims, checking on the pace of recovery. (speaking spanish) oh, boy. >> yeah, so you can see, no roof. >> sullivan: thomas has worked disaster zones around the world-- pakistan, the philippines, haiti, somalia. >> we were pretty surp see how slow the response was, compared especially to majori' emergencies seen in foreign countries. >> yeah. >> for me, the philippinesin comes to the response here was much slower. >> sullivan: the response here was slow? >> slower. >> sullivan: than it was in the philippines? >> after haiyan, yeah. >> sullivan: wow.

>> and here we couldn't get over particularly how bad the shelt response was. and that was something we really were focusing on. >> sullivan: along the east coast in yabucoa...re >> we ere two months ago. we came... >> sullivan: ...we stopped inar to seenavarro and her husband. (conversing in spanish) since alice saw them last, the federal govement had helped put up a temporary roof, but it came more than two months after the storm. is this from water? >> yeah. >> is the water still leaking down into your room? >> yes. >> oh, my gosh. >> the rain... >> it's coming through? p the longple and their homes are exposed to the elements, the more at risk they are, the more at risk their health is, and the more their home is lost. so homes that here were tlvageable, if they had j gotten some decent tarpaulin. >> sullivan: to keep the rain out. >> to keep the raiout within... right away, within a week would've been largely salvageable. wh about mold?

are you worried about mold? >> sí, look. >> sullivan: and how quick do we usually get tarps out when we're working abroad? t >> so we usury to do that very quickly.et if you canccess to a community, you're bringing tarps. >> sullivan: why could the u.s.t governmentet that done here in puerto rico in the united states of america? >> i do not know. according to people who were working on the ground the whole ti,, they said, quote unquo the whole tarpaulin thing is a "mystery." s livan: a mystery. >> a mystery. why they couldn't distribute tarp i do not know. >> sullivan: that was a mystery we were trying to unvel. why was a such a basic staple of emergency response like tarps not readily available on the island? we got our hands on inteal fema documents and communications. they showed thathen maria hit, key emergency supplies were dangerously low or not available at all. and as for tarps, fema had less than 12,000.ul >>van: were you satisfied,

y the person in charge of this in puerto rico, th had the tarps that you needed? >> i'm never satisfied, okay?it i never look as one single piece. >> sullivan: did you have a problem getting tarp >> we had problems getting everything. when you have to ship it, when you have to add seven days or sometimes longer to everything that you want to bring in, so it is, yeah, it's definitely a challenge. >> sullivan: with such a small stockpile and nearly half ame million damaged or destroyed, fema needed hundreds of thousands of tarps and needed them fast. so it contracted with a smally complled bronze star to bring in 500,000 tarps. but bronze star had no experience working disasters or delivering tarps, and it didn't work out. the first contract that you canceled was bronze star, that was a $25 million contract. do you havany insight into why they were even chosen in the first place?t >> wknow is that we followed our procurement practices, and they're very

rigid, but if they don't perform, we cancel and we move on. >> sullivan: next up was global computers for $30 million. their last federal contract was for $4,000 for kitchen utensils for federal prisons. that one didn't work out, either. do you have any insight in what happened with that one? >> no. the only thing i do know issi that in everle one of these contracts, we follow our federal procurement guidance, and if they pass that, we'll give them a shot. ma sullivan: the next company to get a shot was a atlanta firm called master group. its specialty? importing hookah tobacco. and then master group finally, for $30 million, did get the tarps. do you know why or how they were o get tarps onto the island when the other contractors couldn't? >> they're good at what they do. i... you know, i don't know what would have made them different. >> sullivan: we found one possible reason, by looking through import records.

it turns out that most of the rps master group brought in came from china. none of the tarp companies woul agree to aterview, but one company executive... you wanted to import the tarps from china? ...told me that fema wouldn't allow their companto import tarps from china. it's a violation of federal contracting regulations. is that okay or not okay to import tarps from china? >> i'll let my contracting officers answer thatuestion. this is the first time i'm aware es that issue, that it's something about chtarps or china tarps. it's the first time it's been brout to me. >> sullivan: would it frustrate you to find out that two of your contractors were told that they cohed not import tarps and t finally the third contractor just goes ahead and does it, brings the tarps from china, and that this entire process now has lasted months when it could have lasted weeks? >> if we had 2,000 contracts, which is, i believe, and it may not be full-- it might have been

1,900 and something contracts-- that we've all successfully a executed, we houple of ones that didn't work out well and we dealt with it, okay? >> sullivan:ut these are the tarp contracts. how are you not frustrated by that? i frustrated by everything that the disaster brings and i continue focus on getting it solved. woand so if one path didn', i follow another path to get it done. >> sulvan: there was another key program to help with shelter. rsis one's run by the army corps of enginee. >> good morning, i'm lieutenant general todd semonite.n: >> sullit's called blue roofs. >> and we're on the road again. today we're really here to look at what's called thblue roof mission. before i get into that, i want to pass... >> sullivan: the blue roof program provides storm victims with a sturdier temporary roof to help them get back home. but this program was having troubles, too. did you ha the supplies that you needed on the island to do the blue roof program after the storm hit?

>> the answer is no. because a lot of the supplies that were stored, some of the supplies in puerto rot sent to the virgin islands after irma. this is fema's challenge. it's nice to be able to have as much as u possibly can before the storm, but at some point, you've really got to figure outr s that storm going to hit? how do you go as fast as you can once you know? >> sullivan: fema documents indicate that when maria struck, there was no plastic sheeting on the island for the blue roof program. and an internal review by the puerto rican government founder that aft three months, only about 45% of those that asked for a blue roof had one. it said the program was plagued by "buaucratic delays," a "lack of pre-planning," and continually fell "short of promises and expectations." when we checked the numbers, we found a glaring disparity. i mean, after 30 days in florida, you had 4,500 blue roofs up, and in puerto rico, after 30 days, you had 439. >> yeah, i thi it goes back

to how much material do you have? almost all the warehouses were empty. w n we hit, the amount of available supplies-- either generators, blue roof material,v wh it might be, were just not there to be able to respond in an effort that would have probably been something that could ve got us more of a jump start. sullivan: the level ofresponsek contrast to what i'd seen in houston after harvey and florida after irma, where the government seem far better prepared. has fema been good? has it been helping out? >> wonderful. >> sullivan: jt over a week after the storms hit... >> all this stuff from the ice box is all... >> sullivan: the federal government had 3 times as many people on the ground in texas, and twice as many in florida, as it did in puerto rico. >> just make sure that you and your neighbors are aware of that. >> sullivan: local emergency managers on the mainland were well-financed and ready to respond. nine days into the disaster, federal officials had handed out, on average, twice as much water and more than four times

as many meals and tarps in houston and florida. is there any reason to believe that supplies were better pre-positioned in harvey in texas and in irma in florida, than they were in maria in puerto rico? >> i don't think so.k i that we need to evaluate is whether we had enough. i do know we had supplies. i do know we had... but did we have enough for a category-four storm? >> sullivan: right. >> probably not.va >> sulli fema's own documents point to problems beyond supplies. at theime of maria, the agency was stretched so thin, half of its staff on the island were trainees or unqualified for this kind of disaster work.on government email described the troubles with shipping, "we cannot survive any longer with any delay of material.ut i needns." an

d while there was a controversy about puerto rico hiring a company called white fish, that had no experience restoring power grids, few knewd that the fal government had done a similar thing. >> a of a sudden, about the eighth day in, the administration asked us to be ableo step up and to be able to take on this mission of grid repair.t is not something that we even planned on doing in any kind of a disaster. we don't do grid repair, usually, normally, doctrinally.u so then whene got the mission, the question is, how long does it take to write a contract? we can't afford that process. >> sullivan: to expedite the process, the corps turned to one of its largest standing contractors, fluor, a company with experience building power plants, but noxperience putting power grids back together. and were you satisfied with them? >> i was satisfied with them now, you're going to ask me... >> sullivan: i am going to ask you. >> "why should it take sevenhs moo get puerto rico... >> sullivan: why is it taking seven months to get puerto rico up and running? >> ...up a running?" i'm not satisfied with the

level of response that it takes to get people electricity.he however,you understand the level of devastation and the fact this system was 40 45 years old, been broken already by a couple of different storms, here's the other thing, laura..s livan: but given all of those challenges and difficulties, is seven months for power restoration the best that the corps can do? >> i thi in this particular occasion, with the challenges we had, i think it was the best the corpcould do. >> sullivan: you know, you've got a blue roof progra's months behind. you've got hundreds of thousands of tarps that never arrived. you've got a power restoration company that has no experience restoring power. you've got materials stuck on docks in florida and puerto rico. you've got a quarter of your workforce unqualified. how is any of this okay? >> first of all, i dgree with all of your characterizations of the situation there. and that i think we've done a lot of support.

how can you look at the fact that wgave a billion dollars in assistance out, that we've given out 62 million liters of water, 52 million meals to the people. how can you categorize that aspr noiding assistance? i find that, that it doesn't connect, you know? >> sullivan: yeah. because at the end of the day, you have three and a half million americans wht months in the dark. sometimes without water. is this really the best that fema can do? >> i constantly look to get better. but, you know, if there's a llain here, okay, if there's a thing, it's the 190-mile-an- hour winds and the 50 inches of rain. that's the villain. that's what did the damage tole the pe we've done nothing but try to remedy that. you've found a number of places where we weren't perfect, i'll accept that, bring it on, okay? i'm gonna keep working to get better. >> sullivan: seven months after maria, more than 100,000 puerto ricans are still withoer

and the island is routinely expericing outages. as for those tarps, fema told us recently that it had suspended master group's contract because" ality" issues. but it insists it now has 200,000 tarps on the island. hurricane season starts in a month. the focus in puerto rico hasto shifted noong-term recovery. and the estimates for rebuding run as high as $90 billion. so far, congress has approved nearly $30 billion, but lawmakers say they're reluctant to hand out more money until they see evidence that the island can better manage i fiscal affairs. people have said, "if puertodl rico can't hits own finances, why should we come and help them if they can't keep their own house in ord >> because this is about fair treatment of the u.s. citizens that live in puer rico, and, secondly, it doesn't take into consideration the fact

that while there may have been, and there has been, poor administration in the past, itth is alsaftermath of being a territory. >> sullivan: do you think that the treatment of puerto rico has really changed in all these years? >> no, not really, unfortunately. and we're seeing that right now. a lot for people are lving the island for reasons that i can totally understand. >> sullivan: do you think you'll stay >> i have no idea, but i certainly have to think about my options. i'm not going to lie. the main worry that i have is my children. >> sullivan: if people like you leave and the federal government continues down the path that it's on, what will the future l loe for puerto rico? >> it will be bleak. wif we don't get the helpneed from the federal government and we lose people in their prime working years, as is happening right now, we're going to have a very tough time generating the

economic activity we need. and we're going to end up with a place that's probably full of very old people and a lot of very pr families. it would be a very desolate place to live. >> i like the word in english, because it conveys a lot more of what we don't have. we have no power. and what has happened is, in the darkest moment, people get their energy not from an electrical grid, but from that strength of your soul. but, for hven's sake, what is it gonna take? how much more do we have to endure for somebody to riderstand that what is happening in puert is a violation of our human rights?

>> sullivan: it's been the worst blackout in u.s. hiory. and on one of our last trips here, we came across oscar carrion, who runs a local corner store. he'd collected $2,500 from his neighbors, bought an old bucketc tr scavenged up some spare parts, and, with no prior experience, taught himself howre to string >> (conversing in spanish) >> sullivan: when we foundan oscar, hhis friends had restored power to more than half of the 6,000 residents here. >> (speaking spanish): (whistles)

>> sullivan: why do you get up there and put your life on the line for this? >> (speaking spanish):

♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline for an update on the death toll in puerto rico from hurricane ria. >> oh my god, look at this. >> explore more of ourn investigatth npr. >> how are you not frustrated by that? >> learn more about the government's blue roof program. >> it's nice to be able to have as much as you possibly can before the storm. and watch our previous investigations with npr. connect to the frontline inmmunity on facebook, twitter and pbs.org/frone. >> narrator: peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse... er>> the world's most vulnable men, women and children have been exploited by u.n. peacekeepers who were supposed to be protecting them. >> narrator: a global scandal... >> can you describe the men to me? >> narrator: ...and what's being

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- [carlos] growing up in zimbabwe, t danai gurira didn' see a lot of characters who looked like her on the stage or screen. bu eventually, she would turn thae that cast her homeland into the spotlight, earn her a tony nomination, starring roles in the walking dead and the international blockbuster, black panther. and put her on the path to breaking big. what makes people successful? what are the unexpected turns in life that propel people to greatness? i'm carlos watsoeditor of o. i'm out to uncover the real secrets behind breaking big.