Puerto Rico toll surges to 2975

OFFICIALS in Puerto Rico have raised the US territory’s official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2975 after an independent study found the number of people who succumbed in the desperate, sweltering aftermath had been severely undercounted.

The new estimate of nearly 3000 dead in the six months after Maria devastated the island in September 2017 and knocked out the entire electrical grid was made by researchers with the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

“We never anticipated a scenario of zero communication, zero energy, zero highway access,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said.

“I think the lesson is to anticipate the worst . ... Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, in hindsight, things could’ve been handled differently.”

He said he is creating a commission to study the hurricane response, and a registry of people vulnerable to the next hurricane, such as the elderly, the bedridden and kidney dialysis patients.

Rossello acknowledged Puerto Rico remains vulnerable to another major storm. He said the government has improved its communication systems and established a network to distribute food and medicine, but he noted there are still 60,000 homes without a proper roof and that the power grid is still unstable.

“A lesson from this is that efforts for assistance and recovery need to focus as much as possible on lower-income areas, on people who are older, who are more vulnerable,” said Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken institute.

The new finding is almost twice the government’s previous estimate, included in a recent report to Congress, that there were 1427 more deaths than normal in the three months after the storm.

I THINK THE LESSON IS TO ANTICIPATE THE WORST. ... YES, I MADE MISTAKES. YES, IN HINDSIGHT, THINGS COULD’VE BEEN HANDLED DIFFERENTLY GOVERNOR RICARDO ROSSELLO

The number of dead has political implications for the Trump administration, which was accused of responding half-heartedly to the disaster.

Shortly after the storm, when the official death toll stood at 16, President Donald Trump marveled over the small loss of life compared to that of “a real catastrophe like Katrina”.

Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in 2005, was directly responsible for about 1200 deaths.

That does not include indirect deaths of the sort the George Washington researchers counted in Puerto Rico.