There’s no denying it–Hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico in a shambles. The Category 4 storm all but destroyed the island’s infrastructure, knocking out power and telephone service, as well as all but one radio station. Much of the island was left without access to clean drinking water, and medical facilities found it all but impossible to operate.
In the face of this, Puerto Rico’s government has maintained that only 62 people have died as a result of the storm. But a recent analysis by The New York Times suggests that estimate doesn’t line up with the devastation still visible on the island.
Times reporters compared the number of people who died in the 42 days after Maria made landfall on September 20 with the same time period in 2015 and 2016. The result? By The Times’ reckoning, 1,052 more people than usual died in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
Mortality data indicate a significantly higher death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria than the government there has acknowledged.https://t.co/Q0wtSNidas
— NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) December 8, 2017
To be sure, compiling data is rather difficult, considering that the island is still reeling. The power grid is only at 70 percent capacity, and significant chunks of residents are still in the dark.
But even the data on hand suggests that more people were dying than government officials publicly admit. Wanda Llovet, head of Puerto Rico’s Demographic Registry, estimated that 118 people per day died from September 20 through September 30, compared with 82 deaths per day before the hurricane. On September 25 alone–the day Donald Trump famously lectured Puerto Ricans about their debt–135 people died.
Three weeks after the storm, 739 more people died on Puerto Rico compared with the same period in the last two years. If those deaths are attributed to Maria, the storm would be the sixth-deadliest hurricane on record.
Another telling figure is the number of deaths from sepsis, a complication from infection. Sepsis deaths jumped almost 50 percent compared to 2016, and could be explained by delayed medical treatment or unsanitary conditions.
One of the reporters on this story, Frances Robles, saw conditions with her own eyes that suggest the body count is much higher than reported.
THREAD: It was pretty clear in the days after Hurricane Maria that people were getting sick and dying more than usual. I met people whose relatives ran out of oxygen and died, contracted bacteria from rat urine, or couldn't get dialysis.
— Frances Robles (@FrancesRobles) December 8, 2017
Even when the government said all hospitals were open, General Buchanan, who led U.S. military efforts in Puerto Rico, said to me: "Define open." And he was right: I found hospitals that weren't taking new patients or only taking pregnant women. Or that had no air conditioning.
— Frances Robles (@FrancesRobles) December 8, 2017
Then I attended a press conference in Puerto Rico, where PR government officials insisted that it was basically a coincidence that nearly 500 more people had died of "natural causes" in September 2017 versus 2016.
— Frances Robles (@FrancesRobles) December 8, 2017
If 8 elderly people had died in a nursing home in South Florida during the Irma blackout, how could that not have occurred in Puerto Rico? I did not buy it.
— Frances Robles (@FrancesRobles) December 8, 2017
At least two other studies suggest that the official death count is too low. One, by Penn State demographer Alexis Santos and independent researcher Jeffrey Howard, estimated that the actual death toll is as much as 10 times higher than officials have indicated. Another, by the Center for Investigative Journalism, found that 1,000 more people than normal died in Puerto Rico in September and October.
Puerto Rico officials only started delving into the matter more when a CNN survey of funeral homes revealed almost 500 additional deaths that funeral directors believed were linked to the storm. After it emerged that more people were dying from power failures at hospitals, oxygen tanks running dry, and similar situations, Governor Ricardo Rossello said he was willing to revise the death count.
Robert Anderson, head of the mortality statistics branch at the National Center for Health Statistics, believes there is “fairly compelling evidence” that Maria is responsible for the spike in deaths on the island. He doesn’t recall seeing that big of a jump during a bad flu season. He urged officials to get the death count right; without knowing what caused so many people to die, “we can’t adequately prepare for the next disaster.”
Anderson couldn’t have said it better. Given that Puerto Rico is usually in the crosshairs of hurricanes that churn through the Caribbean, you would think the government there would want to provide as much information as possible in order to help residents stay safe in the next storm. When all is said and done, hopefully we’ll get an honest assessment of the extent of this tragedy.
(featured image courtesy U. S. Customs and Border Protection, part of public domain)
