>> narrator: tonight, seven monthsfter hurricane maria hit puerto rico, "frontline" 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 llain here, it's the 190 mile an hour winds and the 50 inches of rain. >> narrator: ...the other devastated its economy. >> the government of puerto rico was run as a big ponzi scheme. >> now puerto rico os more than $70 billion. >> who gets left paying the bill? the banks get out and everybody else gets stuck with. the bi >> narrator: tonight, on "frontline"... >> is seven months for power restoration the best that the corps can do?>> ith the challenges we had, i think it was the best the corps could do. >> narrator: "ackout in puerto rico".

>> frontline is made possiblby contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major suort is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur fountion, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information is available at macfound.org. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide, at fordfoundaon.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation:mm ted to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen gr family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline journalism m nd, with major support f jon and jo ann hagler.

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

(woman speaking spanish): (man speaking spanish): (t nder rumbling) (wind whipping) >> looking live at the hurricane slamming the island ae speak... >> maria's massive size dwarfing the island... >> oh, my god! >> no part of it spared. >> prayers are needed. >> laura sullivan: hurricane maria barrel into puerto rico last september, the worst storm s.to hit the island in 90 >> the region was still rebounding from the la storm, irma, when maria rolled in. >> this storm was a tropical

storm that all of a sudden in a span of , 48 hours, became a category-five hurricane. >> the winds are ferocious right now. >> 155 miles an hour... >> ripping buildgs apart. (man and woman saking spanish) >> i was worried about floodg. >> nin to 11-foot storm surge, upwards of two feet of rainfall. >> and i was worried 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.rg the lat was the roberto inemente coliseum in san juan. >> i remember lookat people, and i knew that there was gonna be nothing when they went outside. no electricity, no water. kn and i then that there were people that we wen't gonna be able to get to. and it is the cries that wt unheard that still haunt me at

night. >> we survived maria. we survived maria. >> sullivan: as the island tried pick up the pieces... >> it's hard. we lost everything. >> sullivan: ...the force of the storm was apparent. >> it's horrible, you can't do anything, and you're just waiting. >> please do something! >> sullivan: but the extent of th fdamage wouldn't be knownor days. >> once you went inland, it looked like a bomb hit puerto rico. it looked like a war zone. complete destruction.hi ever was brown instead of green. the infrastructure, the electrical infrastructure in puerto rico, waseverely destroyed. >> sullivan: maria left the entire island without power. and a thousand miles from the mainland, marshalling help woula beaunting task. >> this is the most logistically challenging event the unitedat

has ever seen. and we have been moving and pushing as fast as the situation allows. >> sullivan: two weeks later, the president touched down to survey the situation. >> i think that the job of the first responders has been something like i've never seenbe re. >> 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 anymore.>> ullivan: ...everything was under control. >> fema says it has the supplies it needs. >> there's a lot of good things happening. r >> it islly a good news story. b >> sullivan: there was mounting evidence that all was not going as the government claimed. >> they are in stifling heat, they have no wer, they have no electricity. >> thousands of cargo containers sitting there full of supplies but not delivered. >> damn it, this is not a good news story. >> sullivan: it was a complicated story. and as we investigated ovethe next seven months, we woulddi over 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. k >> she doesnw what she's going to do. >> sulvan: but what i'd seen didn't prepare me for what i would find in puerto rico. four weeks after maria, we 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 surised fema and the military were still struggling to provide the most basic needs. a month in, still delivering

emergency supplies. what are you seeing as the most important thing that has to gett done rig now? >> the short term fromy perspective is really all about water. we've been distributing food, but many places have plenty of food, but people need clean water to be able to drink and survive. >> sullivan: i thoughtwe yore going to say power. >> power's the long term. power's related to everything because the water problem is directly related to lack of ectricity. >> sullivan: it was a continuing crisis, according to 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. >> sullivan: you need seven generators and you can provide water for all ofour people? >> for all our people, that's right. >> sullivan: but, it turns out,e those getors were nowhere to be found. >> they're hard to get. we had hurricanes in texas and florida.sp they have to bifically ordered, they have to be engineered and created in the states or somewhere. so all of that's taking longer w

than everybold like, but it's because of the two other hurricanes, and because it's an island. >> sullivan: we heard that a lot, the logistical challenges of getting help to pueo rico. and traveling from town to town, t saw the hardship of those delays, a third of island still without running wate what are you hearing about when you might get water? >> (speaking spanish) >> sullivan: entire lives piled high in roadside rubbish. ¡hola! menearly half a million hos damaged or destroyed. (speaking spanish): >> sullivan: it's ruins. 80 percent of the island remained in the dark, and asai familiesd for help... oh, my god, look at this. ...they were living in homes that were shells of at they once were. as we tried to figure out why the recovery was taking long, we hded to the eastern

mountains, where we found the man tasked with turning the lights back on. how many homes in puerto rico are you guys powering? >> we're ting to power the entire island. >> sullivan: jose sanchez is with the army corps of engineers. dhe was shocked at what h found-- not just the number of power poles that went down... >> we're talking 60,000 poles. >> sullivan: you haveplace 60,000 poles? >> that's our estimate. >> sullivan: ...but alsohe condition of the entire electric grid. >> it's the worst i've seen. s livan: ever? >> in my 22 years as an engineer. >> sullivan: whe 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: that problem was strikingly visible at the island's agingower plants, like this one, palo seco, just outside of san juan. >> these power plants, wch are obviously the heart of the

system, they're the ones who pump out the blood, if you will. >> sullivan: palo seco's been pumping out elecicity for more than 50 years, and sanchez found that its upkeep had been neglected for decades. is this thing going to break? >> without a doubt, this system is very fragile, there's a lot of conditions that are related to lack of investment. the infrastructure of the entire system is really in bad condition. >> sullivan: like what? >> you can see there's a lot of rust on the parts. there's elements that have not been replaced years. there's literally just lack of operations and maintenance investments. puerto rico is in dire need-- not only power plants, but a reconstruction of the grid itself. 't justivan: and it wa the power grid. we saw vital infrastructure all over the island-- water pumping stations, bridges, levees, roads-- also starved for upkeep and investment, leaving puerto rico vulnerable to the one thing ajthat was sure to come: a

storm. the more time we spent here, the more it became clear that maria was a story abt two disasters-- one natural, one man-made-- and the culmination of widespread neglect that traces back more than a century. ♪ the timeless surf pounds this caribbean shoreline 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 when the united states thought to expand its sphere of influence. d some people call it the imperial period. they went to panama. they expanded througtin america, so puerto rico was 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-govnment. 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 belongs 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 minstitutional rights. they serve in thtary, but can't vote for president. under tax law, puerto ricos a foreign entity. yet under maritime law, it's part of the s. >> over the years, the one dominant theme in the relationship between puerto rico and the united states is the inconsistency of american policy towards the territory. >> sugarcane, backbone of the island's economy...

>> sullivan: for decades,ic am companies profited from the island's cheap labor supply, and tourists flocked to its beautiful beaches. >> welcome to puerto rico. you'll enjoy nativbarbecues, golf, tennis, swimming, or relaxing and enjoying the sights. s livan: but less seen was puerto rico's deep 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 stat actually had colonies a some point, and some people say theytill have, in the case o puerto rico, and i think deep a down it goinst the grain of the american character, the whole idea of havingitizens with a different set of rights, you know? in general, it's very strange. >> sullivan: in the 1970s, the economy was struggling. congress created a special tax

break to attract investment to the island. it was called 936. companies that did business in puerto rico could avoid paying taxes on their earnings. it sparked an influx manufacturing and jobs, and helped build a middle class. but the economic boom wouldn't last. 1996, washington ended the tax break. >> when that 936 tax credits were phased out, the industry started cutting jobs.e and x base of the puerto rico government was eroded. and ashat happened, they needed to either reduce the size of the government or borrow money. >> sulliva heading into recession, theff government's eorts to cut spending created an uproar. so instead, it kept borring money to cover its deficits, with one goverr after the next piling up more and more debt. so from 20 to 2014, what was that like here? >> it s crazy.

the government was borrowing at an incredible clip. >> sullivan: so the debt is getting higher and higher. >> higher and higher, and theil y... >> sullivan: and the economy is shrinking. c yeah, is shrinking. we said, "look, not tell you at what point the music's going to stop, but we can tell you the music will stop at some point.is hing is not sustainable. this is going to explode." (car horns honking) >> sullivan: the cycle of constant borwing relied on a place i didn't expect to be going for a story about maria-- new york city. that's where puerto rico found i financial feline in the municipal bond mart, or what insiders call muniland. >> muniland compared to the general financial market is like a backwater. 's very slow. most of the bonds are very secure. there's almost no risk of default, so they're appropriate for, you know, youchild's college account or your grandmother'retirement account.

an sullivan: bonds are i.o.us. people buy them they get paid back later with interest. and municipal bonds are a common way states and citiesne raise mothey need. it's become a huge market-- $3.8 trillion last 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.o puerto rn sell their bonds all across america and everybody gets tax exemption on the interest. >> sullivan: does that make puerto rican bonds very attractive? >> highly attractive. >> sullivan: attractive to investors for their tax ts, and they were relatively safe. and also attractive to banks, which put the deals together. and then sl the bonds to investors, like pensions and mutual funds. >> fund managers, they will not adot this now, but when pue rico was selling debt like pancakes, they loved pueo rico debt. t y? because you would these

puerto rico bonds into your portfolio and since they had h slighther interest rates okd no taxes attached to them, you immediately like a genius, right? you just bumped up the entire return for the ente portfolio. that's your bonus, right? that's your new mercedes, your new yacht. >> sullivan: but in time, these bonds would become surprisingly risky, and there were signs that thist going to end well for puerto rico or investors. we reached out to major banks involved in putting puerto rican bond deals tether. none would agree to an interview. has anybody come forrd from inside these banks to talk about what was really going on? >> no, but it's a very close-knit world in wall street, and the tendency is just to keep quiet and keep working. >> sullivan: in a smaloffice building in san juan, i found a former bank insider from that close-knit world. he's speaking publicly for the first time about wall street's role in the

island's economic demise.25 for more tha years, he worked with u.b.s., te biggest wealth managem firm on the island. >> i have to get this. (speaking spanish) lo sullivan: his name is c capacete, and he rose through the ranks to run the bank's largest office in puerto rico. >> okay, bye. >> sullivan: okay, so take me back to the '90s. i what wlike at that time? >> it was great. all the new york banks were here in puerto rico. there was a lot of activity. there was money flowing. i was managing about a $3 billion book. >> sullivan: capacete spent most of his career working here, along what's called the "golden mile," where all the bigsi ss 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? wh do they get out of it? >> on a typical deal, the investment bankers will charge a a structured fee, an administrative fee, and all the other fees to get the deal done. then the banks would go and sell these bonds and make a commission. >> sullivan: that sounds like a long line of people that can make some money. >> this is kind of like ahi money-making m. 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 gont and the banks, but also between the banks and ordinary investors. you must be ram. m laura sullivan, nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. >> sullivan: pilar, nice to. meet y for more than 30 years, ram lamba and his wife, pilar, werei univer professors.

they'd regularly saved money for retirement, and in 2004, ram was offerean investment opportunity with u.b.s. oh, how beautiful. >> i met this young fellow at u.b.s., who said, "listen, whyth don't you put money in the puerto rican bonds? thesbonds are protected by t constitution of puerto rico." i said, "my god, whaelse can i ask for, you know?" >> sullivan: and the clouds roll in... after a number of years, he moved alhis retirement savings to u.b.s., more than $350,000. and then in 2011, his broker made him an offer. he said, "i can give yo a collateral loan for a million dolls." >> sullivan: he said, "i'm going to give you a million-dollar loan"? a >>oan, and, "you invest that money in more bos, puerto rican bonds, and then..." >> to buy more bonds. >> buy more. >> sullivan: and buy more bond >> that's right, and i said, "i don't think i can handle that. let's go to half a m."

>> sullivan: what were your thoughts when he proposed this idea to you? >> that this is something unique. i really made it for my retireme, and this is great. >> sullivan: what ram lamb 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, thainside the bank, concerns 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.to you goell these funds." they were just trying to push the bond fundso whoever... whoever had a heartbeat. (car horns honking) >> sullivan: capacete says he got wind of a secret trick some brokers had deviseto boost bond sales and skirt bank policies. it involved ans.

ey one day this client comes up to me and tells me, you know what? bre you aware of what they're doing in this othech?" and i said, "tell me." and he told me the scheme. they were taki out the loan. the adviser was telling themo take the money to a local bank. >> sullivan: aifferent bank. >> a different bank. keep it there for one or two weeks. bring back a similar aand use it to buy more puerto rico bond funds. they were kind of like washing the money. >> sulliva okay. >> it is unethical. it's against the bank's regulations, and it puts the client in a really, reallyough sk situation. >> sullivan: capacete 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. he says they called m into

a conference room and said they'd found no evidence that brokers we misusing loans. >> 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?"he and one of she was very... and i member these words, you know, said, "what would you have done?" >> sullivan: she said that to you? >> and i stood up and i told her, "lo at the big accounts and follow the money. that's all you have to do." >> sullivan: why do yothink 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, "arruinandoa iesta." i was the one that was spoiling their party. >> sullivan: that party ended in 2013. there were growing concerns that

the government couldn'pay back all the bond debt it had taken on. the value of puerto rican bonds began to plummet. ram lamba eventually got a call into his broker's fice. it was about that half a million dollar loan. >> he sa, "i need that 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 in shock. >> sullivan: he was given a week to pay back the loan. llbut as bond prices kept g, he says he lost much of his retirement savings. >> they knew these bonds were no good, and they were selling it. they deceived so my people. it's not my fault, you see, that thky were doing this hanky-p thing, but they 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 to a separate case where the s.e.c. found it didn't mislead its

clients. ane bank said the loan terms were disclosed, d its investigation found one broker violated u.b.s. policies. 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 four other banks were fined by regulators for practices that failed to protect their puerto rican clients. billions of dollars of wealth on the island had been wiped out. and after years of rampant borrowing, the government's financial viability was being wiped out, too. the island was spiraling 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?t "we're goiraise more money," you know? "we're going to get this under control." n well, ther did. >> unfortunately, the government

of puerto rico was run as a bigz poscheme. and what you had was essentially a black box of a government running that had no claritas to what was being borrowed and what was bng spent. >> sullivan: by early 2014, puerto rico's bonds had been doutgraded to junk status, b the government, desperate once again, turned to muniland. >> we've hired plenty of good financial advisers. >> sullivan: and despite the island's economic woes, banks 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. >> really? >> yes. >> there's a famous picture atey morganf the entire puerto rico financial team celebrating. they had their hands up, they were smiling. you could tell from the body. langua i said, "i don't know exactly what we are celebrating here. this is not good." >> sullivan: the celebration didn't lt long. just 15 months later...

>> late today puerto rico, homem to nearly folion americans, defaulted on its largest debt payment so far. >> we're calling it america's greece, and for very good reasons. the fact is puerto rico, yes, they havjust run out of other people's money. >> let me put this very clear: we are out of cash. >> so chapter nine... >> sullivan: within a year, ngress put puerto rico on a path to bankruptcy and under the financial control of an oversight ard. but we kept wondering, why would the banks do a $3.5 billion deal with an island on the verge of default? the bank said they were trying to help puerto rico manage its finaes. but we talked to half a dozen people who either worked on the deal or were clo to it. what they said, is that this deal seemed to be more th just a bondea it was also an exit strategy for the banks. none of those we talked to wou agree to go on camera. and then, we finally found one former bond broker whoould.rt

>> i s 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 eroser and closer to default, banks were gettingus. what were you told specificallyy ankers that you worked with at morgan stanley about 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: ...told you that they had exposure to risk at that time? >> that they had much more than what they wanted, and they needed to unwind that. >> sullivan: that exposure was huge. we discovered the banks had hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in puerto rican debt anm bond dts show almost a quarter of this deal went to pay them back nearly 900 million dollars-- to pay back ksans, pay fees or eliminate other risk for birectly involved. >> slivan: they 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, andev ybody else gets stuck with the bill. >> sullivan: none of the banks that put the deal together would agree to an interview. tht a few of them sent statements noting , "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 stanley, one of the lead banks, told us the terms of the deal werecl "fully ded to investors" and it "extended an additional $250 million in credit" to puerto rico 8 months after the bond. still, investors in the 2014 deal and many other bond deals over the yea, 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 >> i don't think so.

i don't think we'll ever get that money back. you strangle yourself thinking about, "why did i... what did i do?" and i tell her i think my karma are no good. >> sullivan: you think that? >> iyou believe in karma, an law of karma, in some other life, i must have made something 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 thpuerto 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 4 billion bond debt in puerto rico, was sold using all the

investment bankers in wall street. nd pitchld come down the deals and they knew they were doing deficit financing and they knew that they were increasing that amount, and they knew that the economy was shrinking, and if the banks would have been responsible, and would ve said, "hey, listen, you can't borrow this amount so thwe're just going to limi to that," we wouldn't be in this place right now. >> sullivan: the debt crisis had left the island dangerously vulnerable. basic services andre infrastruc had been more than ever, puerto rico needed a federal government ready to help. but the mantripwe mad here after maria, began to realize not only was the island unprepared, soas the federal 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 itn herself to set up a relief center, handing out donated clothes right in front of where her house used to be. >> (speaking spanish): >> sullivan (speaking spanish) >> (speaking snish) >> sullivan: oh, no. >> (speaking spanish): >> sullivan: (gasps) that's your kitchen? it didn't look like it, but jossie is acally one of the lucky storm survivors. did you get any help from the federal government? >> sulvan: fema had given her its maximum amount of assistance, $33,300, enough for

her to rebuild her home. but the amounts femaanded out have varied. how about your friend? how much did your fr 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 agency requires. >> sullivan: when you said that part of you, it makes you angry, what is it that you angry, feel angry?

>> sullivan: the months of waiting for help were taking ait toll in communies all across the island. >> a lot of people in this community, even though we're very close to san juan, haven't received assistance yet. >> sullivan: on one of our trips, we met alice thomas... >> and we can talk to her and ask her why that is. >> sullin: ...an expert on disaster response with refugees international. his is her house here? >> this is her houe. >> sullivan: we joined her a she visited storm victims, checking on the pace of recovery. (speaking spanish) , boy. >> yeah, so you can see, no roof.va >> sulli thomas has worked disaster zones around the world-- pakistan, the philippines, haitisomalia. >> we were pretty surprised to see how slow the response was, compared especially to major emgencies i've seen in foreign countries. >> yeah. >> for me, the philippines mes to mind. the response here was much slower. >> sullivan: the response here was slower? s wer. >> sullivan: than it was in the philippines? >> after haiyan, yeah. >> sullivan: wow. >> and he we couldn't get over particularly how bad the shelter

response was. and that w something we really were focusing on. >> sullivan: along the east coast in yabucoa... a>> we were here two mont. we came... >> sullivan: ...we stopped in to see sara navarro and her husband. (conversing spanish) since alice saw them last, the federal government had helped put up a temporary roof, but it came more than two months after the storm. is this from wer? >> yeah. in is the water still leakg down into your room? >> yes. >> oh, my gosh. >> the rain... >> it's coming through? e longer people and thei homes are exposed to the elements, the more at risk they are, the more at risk theirhe th is, and the more their home is lost. so homes that re were salvageable, if they had just gotten some decent tarpaulin. >> sullivan: to keep the rain out. >> to keep the rain out thin... right away, within a week would've been largely salvageable. what about mold? are you worried about mold? >> sí, look.

>> sullivan: and how quickly dou wely get tarps out when we're working abroad? >> so we usually try to do that very quickly. ifou can get access to a community, you're bringing tarps. >> sullivan: why could the u.s. government not get that done here in puerto rico in the a united states rica? >> i do not know. according to people who were working on the ground the whole time, they said, quote unquote, isthe whole tarpaulin thin ryystery." >> sullivan: a mys >> a mystery. why they couldn't distribute tarps, i do not know. >> sullivan: that was a mystery we were trying to unravel. why was a such a basic staple of emergency response like tarps not readily available on the island? we got our hands on internal fema documents and communications they showed that when maria hi key emergency supplies were dangerously low or not available at all. and as for tarps, femaad less than 12,000. >> sullivan: were yosfied, as the person in charge of this

in puerto co, that you had the tarps that you needed? >> i'm never satisfied, okay? i never look at it as one single piece. >> sullivan: did you have a problem getting tarps? >> we had problems getting everything. when you have to ship it, when you have to add seven days orso times longer to everything that you want to bring in, so it is, yeah, it's definitely a challee. >> sullivan: with such a small stockpile and nearly half a llion homes damaged or destroyed, fema needed hundreds of thousands of tarps and needed them fast. so it contracted with a small company called bronze star to bring in 50000 tarps. but bronze star had noki experience w 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 have any insight intohy they were even chosen in the first place? >> what i know is that we followed our procurement practices, and they're very rigid, but if they don't

perform, we cael 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 intoat appened with that one? >> no. the only thing i do know is that in every single one of these contracts, we follow ourem federal proct guidance, and if they pass that, we'llhe givea shot. >> sullivan: the next company to get a sh was a small atlanta firm called master group. its specialty? importing hookah tobacco. and then master group finally, for $30 million, didhe tarps. do you know why or how they were able to get tarps onto the island when the other contractors couldn't? 't they're good at what they do. i... you know, i dnow what would have made them different. >> sullivan: we found one possible reason, by lookingim througrt records. it turns out that most of the tarps master group brought in

came from china. none of the tarp companies would neree to an interview, but company executive... you wanted to import the tarps from china? ...told me that fema wouldn't allow their company to 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 that question. this is the first time i'm awars of thae, that it's something about chinese tarps or china tarps. it's the first time it's been brought to me. >> sullivan: would it frustrate you find out that two of yo contractors were told that they could not import tarpsnd then finally the third contractor just goes ahead and does it, ings 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 lieve, and it may not be full-- it might have been 1,900 and something contracts--t e've all successfully

executed, we had a couple of lles that didn't work out and we dealt with it, okay? >> sullivan: but these are the tarp contracts. how are you not frustrated by eat? >> i'm frustrated rything that the disaster brings and i continue focus on getting it solved. and so if one path didn't work,o ow another path to get it done. >> sullivan: there w another key program to help with shelter. this one's run by the army corps engineers. >> good morning, i'm lieutenant general todd semonite. e sullivan: it's called b roofs. >> and we're on the road again. today we're really here to look at what's called the blueof ission. before i get into that, i want to pass... >> sullivan: the blue roof program prides storm victims with a sturdier temporary roof to help them get back home. but this program was having troubles, too. did you have the supplies that you needed on the island to do the blue roof program after the storm hit? >> the answeis no. because a lot of the supplies

that were stored, some of the supplies in erto rico, got sent to the virgin islands after irma. s so this is femallenge. it's nice to be able to have as much as you possibly can bore the storm, but at some point, you've really got to figure out, where's that storm going to hit? how do you go as fast as you can once you know?ul >> slivan: fema documents indicate that when maria struck, there was no plastic sheeting oh island for the blue roof program. and an internal review by the puerto rican government found othat after three months,nly about 45% of those that asked for a blue rf had gotten one. it said the program was plagued by "bureaucratic 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 infl orida, you had 4,500 blue roofs up, and in puerto rico, after 30 days, you had 439. >> yeah, i think it goes back to how much material do you have? t

almost a warehouses were empty. so when we hit, the amount of available supplies-- eitherra gers, blue roof material, whatever it might be, were just not there toe able to respond in an effort that would have probably been something that could have got us more o jump start. >> sullivan: the lel of response was definitely a stark contrast to what i'd seen in houston after harvey and florida after irma, where the government seemed far better prared. has fema been good? has it been helping out?ul >> wonderf. >> sullivan: just over a week after the storms hit... >> all this stuff from the ice box is all... >> sullin: the federal government had 3 times as many people on the ground in texas, antwice 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 othe mainland were well-financed and ready to reond. nine days into the disaster, federal officials had handedag out, on av 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. i think what we need tuate 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. >> sullivan: fema's own documents point to problems beyond supplies. at the time 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. one government email described the troubles with shipping, "we cannot survive any longer with any delay of material. need solutions." s and while there waa controversy about puerto rico

hiring a company called whiteth fish had no experience restoring power grids, few knew that the federal government had done a similar thing. >> all of a sudden, about the eighth day in, theni admiration asked us to be able to step up anto be able to take on this mission of grid repair. in but it is not somethat we even planned on doing in any kind of a disaster. we don't do grid repair, usuall normally, doctrinally. so then when you've got the mission, the question is, howak long does itto write a contract? we can't afford that process. >> sullivan: to expedite the process, the corps turned to one of its largest standingra coors, fluor, a company with experience building power plants, but no experience putting power grids back together. and were you satisfied withth ? >> i was satisfied with them. now, you're going to ask me... >> sullivan: i am going to ask you. >> "why should it take seven months to get puerto.. >> sullivan: why is it taking seven months to get puerto rico up and running? >> ...up and running?" i'm not satisfied with the level of response thatkes to get people electricity.

however, when you understand the level of devastation and the fact this system was 40 to 45 years old, been broken alrdy by a couple of different storms, enre's the other thing, laura... >> sullivan: but gll of those challenges and difficulties, is seven monthsre for poweoration the best that the corps can do? >> i think in this particur occasion, with the challenges we had, i think it was the best the corps could do. >> sullivan: you know, you've got a blue roof program that'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 por. 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 don't agree with all of your characrizations of the situation there. and that i think we've done a lot of support. how can you look at the fact that we gave a billion dlars

in assistance out, that we've given out 62 million liters of water, 52 million meals to the people. how can you categorize that as not providing assist i find that, that it doesn't connect, you know? >> sullivan: yeah. because at the endf the day, you have three and a half million americans who spente months in rk. esmetimes without water. is this really thethat fema can do? >> i constantly look to get better. but, you know, if there's aay villain here, 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 to the people. we've done nothing but try to medy 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 sti without power and the island is routinely

experiencing outages. as for those tarps, fema told us recently that it had suspended g mastup's contract because of "quality" issues. t it insists it now has 200,000 tarps on the island. hurricane season starts in a month. the focus in puerto rico has shted now to long-term recovery. and the estimates for rebuilding run as high as $90 billion. so far, congress has approd nearly $30 billion, but lawmakers say they're reluctant to hand out more money until they see evidence that the island can better manage its fiscal affairs. people have said, "if puerto ricoan't handle its own finances, why should we come and help them if they can't keep their own housin order?" >> because this is about fair treatment of the u.s. citizens that live in puerto 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, it eiis also the aftermath of a territory. >> sullivan: do you think that the treatment of puerto ricoha really changed in all these years? >> no, not really, unfortunately. t and we're seeing that riw. a lot for people are leaving the island for reasons that i cany totaderstand. >> sullivan: do you think you'll stay? in i have no idea, but i certainly have to about my options. i'm not going to lie. the main worry that i have is my children. s livan: if people like you leave and the federal government continues down the path that it's on, what will the future look like for puerto rico? >>t will be bleak. if we don't get the help we need 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 poor 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 isin the darkest moment, people get theio energy notan electrical grid, but from that strength of your soul. but, for heaven's sake, whats it gonna take? how much more do we have to endure for somebody to understand that what is happening in puerto rico is a violation of our human rights?

>> sullivan: it's been the worst blackout in u.s. history. and on one of our last trips re, we came across oscar carrion, who runs a local corner store. he'd collected $2,500 from his p ighbors, bought an old bucket truck, scavenged ume spare parts, and, with no prior experience, taught himself how totring wire. >> (conversing in spanish) >> sullivan: when we found oscar, he and his friends had restored power to more than half of the 6,000 residents here. >> (speaking spanish): (whistles) o

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

♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline for an update on the death toll in puerto rico from hurricane maria. >> oh my god, look at this. >> explore more of our investigation with 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 community on facebook, twitter and pborg/frontline. >> narrator: peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse... >> the world's most vulnerable men, women and children haveed been ey u.n. peacekeepers who were supposed to be protecting them. >> narrator: a global scandal... >> can you describe the men to me? >> narrator: ...and at's being done. >> i think there has been a culture of impunity, i think

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