STORM OF LIES
Puerto Rico ’cane killed 1,427, not just 64 as first reported, officials admit
Puerto Rico officials estimate the death toll from Hurricane Maria to be more than 1,400 — or 22 times higher than the number of deaths originally tallied.
Island officials released the new figures in a June 12 report to Congress outlining their $139 billion reconstruction plan. Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s administration counted 1,427 more deaths during hurricane season than there were during the same period — between September and December 2017 — in the four preceding years.
Puerto Rico Public Safety Department Secretary Hector Pesquera said that the new number “is simple math” based on the number of excess deaths. “This is not the official number of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria,” he said, which remains at 64.
The additional deaths were the result of a series of “cascading failures” across the island as a result of the Category 4 storm, which hit the island on Sept. 20.
These numbers could again go up after a commissioned study by Georgetown University is completed in the next few weeks.
At the time, President Trump praised the rescue and relief efforts of his administration, despite widespread power outages and the lack of drinkable water. During a visit to the town of Guyanabo last October, Trump handed out supplies in front of the cameras, at one point blithely tossing rolls of paper towels into the crowd in what some criticized as a tone-deaf gesture in light of the suffering.
Roads and bridges were washed out, leaving whole towns cut off from supplies and health care. Hospitals lost power, leaving the sick and the elderly to suffer in the heat. San Juan Mayor Elaine Duke slammed the President at the time, saying, “Damn it. This is not a ‘good news’ story, this is a ‘people are dying’ story.”
The President responded with typical umbrage, pointing at the low number of recorded fatalities as proof of the effectiveness of the federal relief effort.
“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous — hundreds and hundreds of people that died — and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering ... no one has ever seen anything like this,” Trump told Puerto Rican officials in October, when the official toll sat at 16.
There has been a great discrepancy in aid, as well.
Omar Marrero, the director of Puerto Rico’s Central Recovery and Reconstruction Office, said in March the country had received $1.27 billion – well short of the $23 billion promised – for its federal assistance nutrition program, and $430 million to help repair infrastructure.