My impression from reading the news is that the slow response to the crisis in Puerto Rico is political and cultural, rather than practical or logistical. Where as the response to Houston and Florida was swift, there is just less political pressure on Puerto Rico. One the reasons may be that many Americans don't realize Puerto Rico is a part of the United States, and its residents are Americans. There is certainly a lot less media coverage on Puerto Rico. By comparison, the hour by hour update on Irma nearly gave me nightmares!

I feel like if we go deeper into this topic, the discussion will be unsuitable for this forum. But I started wondering, how do we know when a (seeming) delay is due to the size of the disaster? What are the administrative decisions/commands that must be given to set the effort in motion? How do the relief organizations (the military, for example) get ready to go and help?