Posted on 05/29/2018 8:47:51 AM PDT by cll
CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO — At least 4,645 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria and its devastation across Puerto Rico last year, according to a new Harvard study released Tuesday, an estimate that far exceeds the official government death toll, which stands at 64.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that health-care disruption for the elderly and the loss of basic utility services for the chronically ill had significant impacts across the U.S. territory, which was thrown into chaos after the September hurricane wiped out the electrical grid and had widespread impacts on infrastructure. Some communities were entirely cut off for weeks amid road closures and communications failures.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Would that money I spent have gotten to the people who were suffering outside the city? At St Thomas, I took one of the limited tourist boats that went to St Johns, used one of the limited slips available on both islands, went to a beach that had been cleared, learned that 70% of the electricity had been restored and provisions had been made so everyone who lived there had access, listened to guides (on trip over and in shuttle) tell us about the recovery effort, we saw it, but weren't getting in the way, had a beautiful day at a beach open to residents, came back to St John's port, got an ice cream from entrepreneurial islanders who opened a store to provide snacks, returned and got more history and knowledge about the recovery. It felt very real, not a Disneyworld for cruisers to ignore people who weren't fortunate enough to sell trinkets in a tourist trap.
Some of it would have ended up outside of Old San Juan at least most of the staff of the restaurant, bar, and shop do not live in the old city it is just too pricey. The rum is made on the other side of the bay. The government unfortunately would have gotten their cut too thanks to IVU over 11%. The money cycles in PR just as it does in STT and STJ. Most of the horrific media coverage is very exaggerated and most of PR is open for business.
Critical article
I heard it was billions. /s
More on how there’s lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/02/did-4645-people-die-in-hurricane-maria-nope/?utm_term=.611dadf7994a
So the increase in deaths was a lot lower than what those Harvard “experts” extrapolated. (The PR Department of Health finally released a report, cited as an update to the WaPo article, comparing deaths in Sept., Oct.., Nov. and Dec. and revealing an increase on the low end of prior estimates from news groups and much lower than in that Harvard estimate.) And the elephant in the room is that most of those additional deaths were only tangentially connected to the passage of the hurricane, and if Ms. María Hurricane was a person she’d wouldn’t be able to be charged, much less convicted, of homicide for such deaths. A bigger contributor to those deaths (which often were cases of terminal patients dying a month or two earlier than normally would be expected—notice that the PR Department of Health Report reveals fewer deaths in December than in prior Decembers) was negligence on the part of PR utility companies, the health system, the state and local government, and, yes, the families of the victims.
The figures from the study were compared with the M&M figures for the same period of 2016 which had been consistent over a number of years. The figures for the same period in 2017 were significantly higher. That would include all deaths which would cover the heart attacks and deaths from lack of insulin (which has to be kept cold) for diabetics caused by high stress, dislocation, and lack of refrigeration and transportation. For those who don’t know, M&M is Morbidity and Mortality.
Right after the hurricane (Note: my son, wife and grandchildren live there) I pulled up the map of PR on Google Earth. I magnified it and then went all around the coast of the island. Almost all the port cranes were in San Juan, only a few other ports had any cranes at all. One port that had 3 (south west part of PR) I later read one had been wrecked by the wind and that was not on the hardest hit part of the island. So Trump was correct it was hard to land supplies, at least in the beginning, and in addition ships probably had to wait several days for the hurricanes coming up the mainland to die down and the seas with them.
I read that there were a few places people could go to recharge their devices. I don’t know if that affected cell phones. It was almost a week before my son contacted his brother on the mainland, and he lives near San Juan. Also see my comments 66 and 67. I was traveling for a week and only just saw this thread.
Many homes were not built of concrete, especially in the more rural areas. My son, in a 3 story concrete building with his apartment facing away from the storm path had their floor flooded from water that blew under the front door. Otherwise, no damage, but no water for weeks, and no electricity for months, no public school, but the private school was in class after 2 or 3 months. See the link below for pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in PR. In one photo I see 8 dead livestock. I wonder how many cows, goats, pigs, chickens, etc. died depriving the island of important food sources. The second link is labeled damage rather than aftermath.
Only deaths provided a death certificate had been officially counted. It took weeks to get to some areas and isolated homes. If many more DCs have been issued I image some may be afraid to issue the numbers. The link below provides details on the Harvard study including a link to the study itself which has been published in the New England J. of Medicine. Also details on general aftermath conditions reported by those interviewed. Some who criticize PR seem to forget they had already been hammered by a major hurricane that swept the north coast only two weeks earlier.
Also see other information in my comments 66 and 67.
Due to or during?
*************
They are saying due to as I understand their info.
snip from the article
Researchers in the mainland United States and Puerto Rico, led by scientists
at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center, calculated the number of deaths by surveying almost 3,300
randomly chosen households across the island and comparing the estimated
post-hurricane death rate to the mortality rate for the year before. Their
surveys indicated that the mortality rate was 14.3 deaths per 1,000 residents
from Sept. 20 through Dec. 31, 2017, a 62 percent increase in the mortality
rate compared with 2016, or 4,645 “excess deaths.”
Yes, you’ve managed to describe “rural Puerto” to a tee. So how come, since it’s been part of the United States for what, 100 years, it’s still a third-world place? And don’t give us that $hit about the government not caring, because they are self-governing and they still manage to pick the worst of their lot to “govern” them! The truth is, looking around the Western Hemisphere, the countries inhabited and/or governed by folks from Spain and Portugal have never managed to run themselves successfully for more than a few years at a stretch. Here, only the United States and Canada have been able to develop relatively decent societies, and the Canadians have had to do it with a bunch of recalcitrant Frenchmen as their cross to carry.
The problem is that with the Commonwealth status, it makes it too easy for the productive class to leave for better opportunities on the mainland, so who is left behind?
How do we know they weren’t slitting each other’s throats?
Settling old scores while the cops were busy with rescues?
“The problem is that with the Commonwealth status, it makes it too easy for the productive class to leave for better opportunities on the mainland, so who is left behind?”
So they go to Florida and vote RAT! As for “who is left behind,” the sad fact is that those most unable to leave, are also the one’s who can’t fix what’s wrong there. Puerto Rico runs just like Spain. A few wealthy at the top who don’t give a $hit about the rest other than what they can extract from them. Maybe Congressman Hank Johnson will sponsor a bill to have it towed out to sea and used for target practice, since he thinks islands are like boats.
A few years ago our company decided to have our winter sales meeting in San Juan rather than the usual Honolulu. Let me tell you, There is no comparison, San Juan is a dump!
And all the Neyoriquan celebrities, like Marc Anthony and J-Lo who don’t do jack squat but pay lip service to the island their parents abandoned, and blame Republicans for all of PR’s troubles.
How do we know they weren’t slitting each other’s throats?
***************
We don’t know. They are saying more deaths during the time
period as compared to a year ago. Didn’t say methods of
death as I read the article.
Survey data is not comparable to official mortality data. The only valid way to compare data rates is with the same data gathering methodology.
Yes there are a couple of container cranes in Ponce and I recall seeing a picture of one blown over. Some of the concern right after the storm was a lot of boats had broken from their moorings and were suspected to have sunk in the channels so all the ports had to be cleared. Ponce’s port is a minor one in the big scheme of things but I saw reports of cargo being delivered there. Most of the gasoline and LNG for the power plant is delivered by barge in Guayanilla. The occasional cargo ship ports there as well but there are no cranes. Mayaguez has a port as well but I do not know much about their operations as I stay in Guayanilla when on island and have a direct view of the pier there.
“Actual data on deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria debunks Harvard study that media used to bash Trump “
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