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by throwaway5752 3185 days ago
I think you do not understand the tweet (it means that the various agencies listed had responded and were in the act of responding - '3- "Then, after every department reported their activities and projections, it was time for the White House to issue their report."' - but specifically the office of the president had nothing planned). I don't know why one would be skeptical of that. The President's public activities after it made landfall on 9/20 were 1) the infamous Alabama rally for Luther Strange 2 days post-landfall 2) a weekend tweeting against NFL 3-4 days post-landfall, continuing into the next week 3) taking 7 days to issue a temporary waiver for the Jones act (after shipping industry comments) 4) and now he is on vacation golfing ... it's very obvious where his mind is. Here is a Twitter source supporting that: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump. One supportive tweet the day of landfall, then nothing until 5 days later that when he said, "Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble." (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/91247827450842316...). It's 6 days in his timeline after landfall before he realizes it's an issue for him.
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Note also that the USNS Comfort was deployed more quickly to Haiti in 2010 (for an earthquake which had zero days warning) than to Puerto Rico, where the order was given seven days after the storm struck: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-09-2...
This seems like a more realistic, tangible criticism.
The Navy pre deployed 4 ships before the hurricane hit:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-hurricane-...

The hospital ship was at Norfolk and in reduced operational status, so wasn't ready to go.

https://www.military1.com/search-and-rescue/article/18355360...

Predeployed for Irma. Then two of those ships went home after helping Florida... as maria was bearing down on PR they were sailing away in the opposite direction.

https://www.news4jax.com/weather/hurricane-irma/jacksonville...