A Puerto Rico devastated by last year\u2019s Hurricane Maria is on the verge of its next hurricane season. \u201cAnd there are still problems,\u201d says GroupM\u2019s Phil Cowdell.<\/p>\n

There will be more storms and \u201cpeople are still living under roofs with plastic tarpaulins\u2026there are still people who don\u2019t have power. So what we have to do is help to sustain relief to make sure that people live their own lives and be independent.\u201d<\/p>\n

At last week\u2019s Beet Retreat<\/a> in the City: Television Advances as Consumers Choose, Cowdell provided an update on those relief efforts.\u00a0 He presented an overview of what he and his colleagues from GroupM undertook<\/a> in tthe weeks after the storm.via slides and video. In this interview with Beet.TV contributor Ashley J. Swartz<\/a>, Cowdell explains how a GroupM team including people from agencies like MediaCom, Media Edge and Wavemaker responded after Maria struck on Sept. 16, 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened immediately after the storm is I reached out and said, \u2018how is everybody\u2019? It took a couple of days to find out at least they\u2019re all okay and they\u2019re alive,\u201d says Cowdell, who is Global President, Client Services. \u201cAnd then when you get a message from a colleague who says \u2018but I have no drinking water for my 13-month old baby,\u2019 what do you do? You have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some people donated money or made pledges to do so, Cowdell chose to \u201cget on a plane and you can take water purification. I managed to get on a phone, collected water purification, filters, solar lamps, medications, etcetera.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cowdell expresses frustration when he recalls seeing events on the ground versus what the news media was reporting during the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. He says the national narrative the weekend after the storm was characterized by people tweeting \u201cabout the NFL and taking a knee. They weren\u2019t about thousands of Puerto Ricans at risk and potentially thousands dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some news reports conveyed the impression that there were lots of relief efforts going on by individuals and the military.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was being told didn\u2019t reflect reality on the ground. I know we\u2019re in a world of fake news now, but for me personally it was my first real experience of seeing the reality of a situation on the ground and what\u2019s being communicated through the storytelling of the media,\u201d Cowdell says.<\/p>\n

His focus going forward is to continue to help marshal continued assistance to Puerto Ricans in the face of inexorable threatening weather conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real issue is, the storm when it first hit was a weather disaster. What happened after it became an economic disaster. People who are very rich paid $25,000 they flew out and moved to their houses in Miami. Then it got to the next class and the next class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in places like the hills of Campos, \u201cThey are still in desperate need. There was no real tolerance for a storm like this. Those are the people who need help.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a reception following Beet Retreat in the City, there was an auction<\/a> to assist the Boys & Girls Clubs<\/a> of Puerto Rico. So far, that effort has raised some $20,000.<\/p>\n

This video was produced at the Beet Retreat in City & Town Hall<\/a> on June 6, 2018 in New York City. The event and video series are presented by LiveRamp, TiVo, true[X] and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Puerto Rico devastated by last year\u2019s Hurricane Maria is on the verge of its next hurricane season. \u201cAnd there are still problems,\u201d says GroupM\u2019s Phil Cowdell. There will be more storms and \u201cpeople are still living under roofs with plastic tarpaulins\u2026there are still people who don\u2019t have power. So what we have to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":53102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[7289],"tags":[2893,5287,4242,5092,5143,5883,6671,6730,6858,7265,7269,7290],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}