President Donald Trump’s opponents are back to blaming the White House for the high number of deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria bulldozed the tiny island.
Activists and politicians blame the president for the death toll, claiming that Hurricane Maria’s aftermath is one of Trump’s chief policy failures.
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand dinged the administration for failing thousands of American citizens in the eye of the storm.
“These were our fellow citizens and this administration failed them. Congress must do its job to send long-overdue resources. We can’t let this slip into silence,” Gillibrand wrote in a tweet Tuesday.
Other anti-Trump activists joined the hit-parade, with one liberal journalist comparing the aftermath to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Puerto Rico just raised its official Hurricane Maria death toll to 2,975 people – 46 times more than last estimated.
These were our fellow citizens and this administration failed them. Congress must do its job to send long-overdue resources. We can’t let this slip into silence.
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) August 29, 2018
“Nearly 3,000 Americans died. Almost exactly the number that died on 9/11,” Judd Legum, a former editor-in-chief at Think Progress, told his Twitter followers Tuesday. “And this is seldom discussed as a policy failure by the Trump administration.”
Nearly 3,000 Americans died. Almost exactly the number that died on 9/11.
And this is seldom discussed as a policy failure by the Trump administration. https://t.co/c5gfJQX6YK
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) August 28, 2018
Gillibrand and Legum were referring to a report Tuesday from CBS showing nearly 2,975 people died on the island from September 2017 through February 2018.
The report was based on a study by George Washington University (GWU) that Puerto Rico commissioned earlier in 2018. The new total is much higher than the previous official count of 64.
Politico conducted an in-depth review in 2017 of a disaster response plan Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) crafted in 2014 and found major deficiencies that seriously complicated response time.
The plan underestimated the scope of damage that a severe storm like Maria would bring to Puerto Rico, and it relied too heavily on local agencies and private sector entities to handle cleanup and restore critical services.
FEMA assumed Puerto Rican agencies would be capable of restoring the island’s power and telecommunications systems in a reasonably brief time frame.
What really transpired was almost exactly the opposite scenario: the island’s already rickety power grid failed almost completely, leaving huge swaths of the island without power in what was the largest blackout in U.S. history.
Puerto Rico’s government struggled to put the island back online. The island filed for bankruptcy in May and recently closed 200 schools to save $7 million, while simultaneously issuing 107 consulting contracts since January to questionable recipients.
Island officials spent over $256 billion in federal funds from 1990 through 2009, but only collected $74 billion in tax revenue. The U.S. territory is required to prioritize its payments to creditors unless the funds go to essential services.
Read more at Daily Caller
Puerto Rica was not the only island in the area to suffer hurricane damage AND there were two Hurricanes in 2 weeks that struck several Caribbean Islands, including Puerto Rica, AND the U.S. mainland.
But first Harvey had to be dealt with in late September. Remember? Harvey caused at least 107 confirmed deaths: 1 in Guyana, and 106 in the United States. Total damage from the hurricane is estimated at $125 billion, making it among the costliest natural disasters ever in the United States. Needless to say, there was a large U.S. group of aid, relief and responders committed to Texas, the gulf coast and Caribbean before Irma or Maria arrived.
Deaths, to date, attributed to Harvey remain the same for the U.S. and Guyana.
Hurricane Irma arrived about 2 weeks before Hurricane Maria so there was an even larger U.S. and international group of aid, relief and responders already deployed. Hurricane Irma made seven landfalls, four of which occurred as a category 5 hurricane across the northern Caribbean Islands. Irma made landfall as a category 4 hurricane in the Florida Keys and struck southwestern Florida at category 3 intensity. Some 5 million Floridians lost power. Irma caused widespread devastation across the affected areas and was one of the strongest and costliest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin. Remember, it was Hurricane Irma that knocked out two-thirds of Puerto Rica’s electrical service two weeks ahead of Maria’s arrival.
Hurricane Irma death toll remains at 134 as the 3 deaths attributed to Irma in Puerto Rica have not been revised…… yet.
Hurricane Maria reached Category 5 strength on September 18 just before making landfall on Dominica, becoming the first Category 5 hurricane on record to strike the island. After weakening slightly due to crossing Dominica, Maria achieved its peak intensity over the eastern Caribbean with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) and a pressure of 908 mbar (hPa; 26.81 inHg), making it the tenth-most intense Atlantic hurricane on record. On September 20, an eyewall replacement cycle took place, weakening Maria to a high-end Category 4 hurricane by the time it struck Puerto Rico.
The official Dominica death toll from Hurricane Maria remains at 10, with two deaths confirmed on the French island of Guadeloupe.
2911 is an awful lot of extra “likely” casualties to just now be turning up. Has anyone from the fake news asked Puerto Rica’s officials why they grossly under reported deaths attributed to Hurricane Maria? Hurricane Irma???
How does Trump get blamed for Puerto Rica’s inept governments misuse of U.S. taxpayer dollars??? Fake news of course… https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-death-toll.html
Officially, just 64 people died as a result of the storm BUT “The Times’s analysis found that in the 42 days after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, 1,052 more people than usual died across the island. The analysis compared the number of deaths for each day in 2017 with the average of the number of deaths for the same days in 2015 and 2016.” What they didn’t compare was CAUSE of death.
In May, a Harvard University study said Maria was likely responsible for more than 4,600 deaths. That report said, however, those 1,427 deaths “may or may not be attributable to the hurricanes.”
“Politico conducted an in-depth review in 2017 of a disaster response plan Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) crafted in 2014 and found major deficiencies that seriously complicated response time.”
If This had happened while Obama was in the WH
Would she be saying anything but songs of praise ?
Time this phony was voted out altho
not likely given it’s NY
Gillibrand is a typical democrat
A typical liar, but I repeat myself
Well they could always call the Clinton Cash Registry and get a few plastic shovels and buckets .