SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico has conceded that Hurricane Maria killed more than 1,400 people on the island last year and not just the 64 in the official death toll.
The government acknowledged the higher death toll with no fanfare in a report submitted to Congress this week in which it detailed a $139 billion reconstruction plan for the island.
That quiet acknowledgement was first reported Thursday by The New York Times.
Puerto Rican officials have admitted that more than 64 people likely died from the powerful storm that knocked out the power grid and caused widespread flooding that made many roads impassable. But a more exact number has been a matter of debate that the government has sought to end by commissioning an academic study due out in coming weeks.
No snark. Just fucked up.
This whole Puerto Rico fiasco just makes my blood boil.
Trump: “Here … have some more paper towels. This isn’t my problem.”
Racist shitbag wanted everyone to know:
TRUMP: We’ve saved a lot of lives. If you look at the — every death is a horror. But if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous — hundred and hundred and hundreds of people that died. And you look at what happened here with really a storm that was totally overpowering. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this. And what is your death count at this point, 17?
PUERTO RICO GOV. RICARDO ROSSELLÓ: Sixteen, certified.
TRUMP: Sixteen people, certified — 16 people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people.
Not to be insensitive but the post mortem report is essential to try and figure out how everything that could go wrong all went wrong before, during, and after Maria.
I piece of reporting was that half the emergency stockpile was shipped to USV the week before. And even if that hadn’t happened then they still wouldn’t have had enough supplies on hand to deal with the total collapse that did happen. In this same reporting FEMA apparently lost track of this important piece of information.