New York, New Jersey state police head to Puerto Rico to assist with Fiona recovery

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The previous Hurricane Fiona has now been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone. 

It made landfall in Canada in a single day. 

Saturday morning, a bunch of New York and New Jersey state police headed to Puerto Rico to help native authorities within the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona. 

As CBS2’s Christina Fan stories, the primary wave of 75 New Jersey state law enforcement officials boarded buses after which a airplane for hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. They had been joined within the mission by 50 members of the New York state police. 

The flew out of John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport round 10 a.m. on a flight donated by JetBlue Airways.

Their arrival will present much-needed manpower because the island struggles to beat outages, flooding, and harm to infrastructure. 

“It is a great supply of satisfaction for us right here that when catastrophe strikes across the nation, and even off the continental U.S., that they arrive to the New Jersey state police to deploy and help them,” Col. Patrick Callahan of the New Jersey State Police. 

HURRICANE FIONA:  assist these in want

The 2-week mission will focus totally on humanitarian assist. For a number of the troopers, the journey is deeply private. Many have households who dwell on the island first battered by Hurricane Maria in 2017, the earthquakes of 2020, and now Fiona. 

“Overwhelming majority of the site visitors lights are out, so there might be troopers for site visitors lights [in Puerto Rico],” Callahan mentioned. 

“New York State Troopers have all the time answered the decision for help wherever it is wanted, from Louisiana within the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to our first help mission in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Our troopers might be on the bottom helping our companions with the Puerto Rico Police Division with public security and restoration efforts so long as essential,” mentioned New York State Police Superintendent Kevin Bruen. 

The Hispanic Federation, based mostly out of Manhattan, can also be on the bottom offering emergency providers and important provides. Since Hurricane Maria hit 5 years in the past, the group has invested over $50 million in environmental sustainability, renewable vitality and housing. The storm proves extra work must be performed. 

“If that rebuild of that electrical grid occurs instantly, and that it occurs in a approach that will probably be resilient and will probably be much less depending on fossil gas,” mentioned Hispanic Federation President and CEO Frankie Miranda. 

After the primary group of troopers return dwelling, a second group might be despatched to proceed with reduction efforts. 

For a lot of households and organizations with boots on the bottom, the scenes really feel like deja vu.

“Persons are having to begin over once more. A few of these are the identical individuals who had been impacted by Hurricane Maria and earthquakes, and they also have began over once more now a number of instances,” mentioned Charlotte Gossett Navarro, the Hispanic Federation’s Puerto Rico chief director. 

“We wish to ship in giant quantities of meals and water, however due to the infrastructure harm to roads, there are some areas that we simply cannot ship vehicles into,” Navarro mentioned. 

So that they discover other ways to get as shut as they will, then break down the distribution so as to ship them safely. 

Those that cannot bodily assist in individual are discovering methods to assist financially. Saturday, the Queens Evening Market might be donating 33 % of its proceeds to reduction efforts.