Maria’s official death toll in Puerto Rico now 2,975

A long-awaited analysis of Hurricane Maria’s deadly sweep through Puerto Rico prompted the government on Tuesday to sharply increase the official death toll. The government now estimates that 2,975 people died in a disaster whose damage in some cases took months to unfold.

The previous tally of 64 was the official death toll for nearly a year, despite convincing evidence that the fatalities reported on official death certificates failed to take full account of the fatal and often long-range effects the storm had across the island.

The revision came just hours after the release of a new assessment of excess deaths in the roughly six months after the storm, conducted at the government’s request by researchers at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. Their report found that nearly 3,000 more deaths than expected occurred in the wake of the storm — 22 percent more than the number of deaths that normally might have occurred in that period.

At issue has been how to assess the severity of a storm whose devastating impact on fundamental needs — water, electricity, communications and medical care — seemed to rival or exceed that of the deadliest recent storms to hit the United States, but whose official fatality count until now was far less severe. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, is thought to have killed anywhere from 1,000 to more than 1,800 people.

Puerto Rico’s inability to provide a reliable death count seemed, to many critics, to echo the dysfunction apparent in the island’s lack of preparation or any swift, effective response from the local and federal governments. Relief supplies were bottled up at the port, gas and food were in short supply, and electrical power was cut off to large sections of the island for months. Full power was restored to the last homes only this month.