Posted on 09/13/2018 9:16:23 AM PDT by tkocur
President Donald Trump on Thursday denied the massive death toll estimate in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria last year, claiming without evidence that Democrats invented the numbers "to make me look as bad as possible."
"3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3,000."
Trump added that, "This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico."
"If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics," Trump said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
The deaths of 64 people were initially directly attributed to the hurricane by the government of Puerto Rico.[197]
In the immediate months following Maria, the initial death toll relayed from the Government of Puerto Rico came into question by media outlets, politicians, and investigative journalists. Scores of people who survived the hurricane's initial onslaught later died from complications in its aftermath. Catastrophic damage to infrastructure and communication hampered efforts to accurately document the total loss of life.
Investigations in the hurricane's aftermath suggested a wide variety of possible death tolls. On October 11, 2017, Vox reported 81 deaths directly or indirectly related to the hurricane, with another 450 deaths awaiting investigation. Furthermore, they indicated 69 people were missing.[198] Official statistics showed increases of about 20% and 27% in overall fatalities in Puerto Rico during September 2017, compared to 2016 and 2015, followed by a decrease of about 10% in October 2017 compared to the previous two Octobers.[199][200] There were 238 more reported deaths in September and October 2017 than during the same months in 2016, and 336 more compared to September and October 2015.[200] A two-week investigation in November 2017 by CNN of 112 funeral homes—approximately half of the island—found 499 deaths that were said to be hurricane-related between September 20 and October 19.[201] Two scientists, Alexis Santos and Jeffrey Howard, estimated the death toll in Puerto Rico to be 1,085 by the end of November 2017. They utilized average monthly deaths and the spike in fatalities following the hurricane. The value only accounted for reported deaths, and with limitations to communication, the actual toll could have been even higher.[202] Utilizing a similar method, The New York Times indicated an increase of 1,052 fatalities in the 42 days following Maria compared to previous years. Significant spikes in causes of deaths compared to the two preceding Septembers included sepsis (+47%), pneumonia (+45%), emphysema (+43%), diabetes (+31%), and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's (+23%).[203] Robert Anderson at the National Center for Health Statistics conveyed the increase in monthly fatalities was statistically significant and likely driven in some capacity by Hurricane Maria.[203] A Harvard study found an estimated 15 excess deaths in the four months after the hurricane in interviews with 3,299 households, resulting in an estimated 793 to 8,498 excess deaths (with a 95% confidence interval).[204][205][206]
On December 18, 2017, Governor Rosselló ordered a recount and a new analysis of the official death toll.[207] The task of reviewing the death toll was given to George Washington University, with some assistance from the University of Puerto Rico, in February 2018. In response to three lawsuits, including one from CNN and Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism, the Government of Puerto Rico released updated death statistics for the months following Hurricane Maria. Compared to the average deaths in September to December 2013–2016, September to December 2017 had 1,427 excess deaths; however, it is unknown how many of these deaths are attributable to the hurricane. The government acknowledged the death toll was greater than 64, but awaited the results of the government commissioned study to determine the true death toll.[208][209]
In late August 2018, almost a year after the hurricane, the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University published their results. They estimated 2,658–3,290 additional people died in the six months after the hurricane over the expected background rate, after accounting for emigration from the island.[210] As result, the official death toll was updated to an estimated 2,975 by the Governor of Puerto Rico.[197] After the official death toll was updated to 2,975 on August 28, 2018, President Trump stated that he still believed the federal government did a "fantastic job" in its hurricane response .[211]
In September 2018, President Trump disputed the revised death toll. Writing on Twitter, Trump claimed "3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico," Trump claimed that the Democrats had inflated the official death toll to "make me look as bad as possible". Trump provided no evidence to support his claims.[212] The response was immediately met with intense criticism and enormous backlash.
Mission accomplished by the Fake News. Turn Hurricane Florence into a debate on Puerto Rico the President can’t win and inflame the Puerto Rican’s before the mid-terms. The Governor nor no one else in Puerto Rico is going to defend him on this....
This is one case where he didn’t have to pick the front.
Oops! Wrong victims and perpetrators. Gotta get my cue cards straightened out... (/Democrat)
He can win it. I’m sick of their lying filth. For God’s sake it looks like 64 people died according to the democrat media. I refuse to live in lie world.
“No evidence” my rear. There is no evidence of 3000 deaths.
Puerto Rico’s Power Woes Are Decades in the Making
https://www.wsj.com/articles/puerto-ricos-power-woes-are-decades-in-the-making-1506176140
“”For years, Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority enjoyed easy access to bond markets and borrowed regularly, accumulating enormous debt. Yet it failed to make important capital investments, such as transitioning to natural gas from oil to generate power, analysts say. Analysts say the money went to a bloated payroll, among other things.””
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority hands out free electricity to many. It includes the PR government that gets free electricity. I would assume the PR Government Bureaucrats work in air-conditioned offices while the rest of the folks on the island swelter
“””The utility is economically tied down by 392 million dollars in annual subsidies it is forced to give by virtue of legislation. These include subsidies for churches and other non-profit institutions (three million dollars), the tourism industry (nine million), agriculture (oine million), rural electrification and irrigation (six million), and small businesses (less than one million).
But these pale in comparison to the 261 million dollars given to municipalities, known as the CELI subsidy, 17 million for the 2008 Industrial Incentives Act, and 35 million to subsidise the AAA water utility. These last three comprise 80 percent of all subsidies given out by PREPA.”””
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/04/debt-dirty-energy-weigh-heavy-puerto-ricos-utility/
The new estimate of 2,975 deaths, just like prior estimates of between 1,000 and 3,000 deaths, are based on statistical extrapolations that compare (i) the number of people in PR who normally die in the months being analyzed to (ii) the number of people in PR who actually died during such months. 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—a PR Department of Health Report reveals fewer deaths in December 2017 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.
How about since. I'll bet every death on the island since is being attributed to and may indeed have reached this number. How many live there, how old are they ? How many would be strictly natural causes. How many would have been adversely affected by the trauma of no electricity for months, and no water.
With a population of 3.3 mil (probably many seniors) how much of a stretch is it to assume .001 per cent of the population have died in 12+ months with limited health services available.
Even the New York Times understands that Socialists eventually run out of ‘Other People’s Money.
How Free Electricity Helped Dig $9 Billion Hole in Puerto Rico
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/business/dealbook/puerto-rico-power-authoritys-debt-is-rooted-in-free-electricity.html
NEW YORK TIMES Feb. 1, 2016
AGUADILLA, P.R. — To understand how Puerto Rico’s power authority has piled up $9 billion in debt, one need only visit this bustling city on the northwest coast.
Twenty years ago, it was just another town with dwindling finances. Then, it went on a development spree, thanks to a generous —some might say ill-considered — gift from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
Today, Aguadilla has 19 city-owned restaurants and a city-owned hotel, a water park billed as biggest in the Caribbean, a minor-league baseball stadium bathed in floodlights and a waterfront studded with dancing fountains and glimmering streetlights.
Most striking is the ice-skating rink. Unusual in a region where the temperature rarely drops below 70 degrees, the rink is complete with a disco ball and laser lights.
And that is the catch. What most likely would be the biggest recurring expense for these attractions — electricity — costs Aguadilla nothing. It has been provided free for years by the power authority, known as Prepa.
In fact, the power authority has been giving free power to all 78 of Puerto Rico’s municipalities, to many of its government-owned enterprises, even to some for-profit businesses — although not to its citizens. It has done so for decades, even as it has sunk deeper and deeper in debt, borrowing billions just to stay afloat.
Now, however, the island’s government is running out of cash, facing a total debt of $72 billion and already defaulting on some bonds — and an effort is underway to limit the free electricity, which is estimated to cost the power authority hundreds of millions of dollars.
But like many financial arrangements on the island, the free electricity is so tightly woven into the fabric of society that unwinding it would have vast ramifications and, some say, only worsen the plight of the people who live here.
“If the towns don’t get free energy, they’re going to have to pay for it by increasing their property taxes or something, so the people will end up paying,” said Eduardo Bhatia, the president of the Puerto Rico Senate. Residents of the island are already upset about a recent sales tax increase to 11 percent, from 7 percent, and a property tax increase now would cause an outcry. The last assessment was in 1958.
Spot on...only common sense.
His point that 3,000 people died in PR. But during that time frame, 3,000 people usually die in PR.
An analogy would be if they counted a person dying of old age in Hawaii on December 7, 1941 in the war casualties statistics.
The shit they put on death certs is super inaccurate. When my father passed in his sleep at age 80 (and he was a polio survivor who spent a year in an iron lung as a teen), the coroner put obesity and diabetes as cause of death instead of heart failure.
He was neither obese or had diabetes. He did have a beach ball belly which was a result of polio weakened muscles. There was no autopsy and the coroner talked to nobody in the family or the family doctor, just wrote down what he felt like.
One way to find out for sure, refer to the SSA master death list for that time period, it will reveal either massive deaths or massive SS fraud.
I saw that number too and was stunned. Does the media ever fact check itself?
“Rubio(?) just can out and said Pres. Trump is wrong, and that 3000 dead is correct.”
Well, that settles it. Sarc/
Sorry. It was Ryan who said that, not Rubio.
I bet Rubio wishes he had said it first, though.
Tubio is a snake in the grass and needs to be eliminated next time around.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the “3000 additional deaths in the six months after the hurricane” “statistic” is representative. Whose fault is that?Exactly what could have been done, as a practical matter, to eliminate (delay, actually) them? Stack up more bottles of water in some warehouse somewhere in PR?
Should the President have tweeted what he did? FL Republicans are jumping over themselves to disagree.
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