Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The official estimate from the Puerto Rico government was 64.
Puerto Rico's governor does not count as the Puerto Rico government? Fascinating. The 64 person count is silly. In August - before your Orange Hero started declaring his response a success - that number was revised to 1400+.
People die from not having access to elementary services, and it's apparently beyond the capacity of the World's Single Remaining Superpower to provide such after a disaster.
"The study concluded that the initial death toll of 64 only included those killed directly by hurricanes Maria and Irma - either by drowning, flying debris or building collapse.
George Washington University also counted those who died in the six months following the storm as a result of poor healthcare provision and a lack of electricity and clean water."
Wring once again. The 3000 was come up with by an independent study not by the Democrat party. Trump lovers will believe anything as long as it doesn't paint their dear leader negatively.
ok, explain how the independent study got to the numbers and their method.
again, if there are no names attached to the numbers and no actual death certificates and no medical record to back up that number then is suspect at best.
any insurance company would deny all claims if your proof of death is a study done by a university.
Great job blaming the victim in this case (poor people who live on an island), but that's not the point of this thread. Trump has been BRAGGING about doing a great job and trying to gaslight Americans by saying the death toll wasn't 3000 people.
Fact: THOUSANDS of people died after the hurricane. Not the 12-16 that Trump claimed. He was WRONG and he still continues to deny he was factually incorrect about the death toll. In typical fashion, he's doubling down on his lies, and people like you are blaming the victim instead of admitting that his remarks were absurd.
Whether these people died immediately, or soon after because they were 'old' or didn't have access to electricity/healthcare/water is irrelevant. Trump and FEMA knew Maria was coming, and they did little to prepare. Contrast that with the proactive response to Florence (hey, Trump DOES deserve credit for taking this seriously), and you should be able to use YOUR brain to see why people are outraged.
But you won't. Because no matter Trump says or does, you will always fall in line and move the goal posts for him. You have zero empathy and your entire worldview is dedicated to a person who lies so much that you just have to accept everything he says as gospel. Otherwise, GASP!, you'd have to admit you were wrong. Disgraceful.
And you are falling in line with the Dems and the Puerto Rican mayor.
Yes. Victims should be held accountable too, even if they were living in poverty and in shantytowns. And I don't take Trump's tweet as a brag but just stating FACT. FEMA and Trump did just fine in the aftermath of Maria. And of the people who died, they died because of where and how they lived on that island. And because their style of government didn't have a plan on how to get help to the people that needed it the most. And that's also what happens when impoverished people keep making more babies and trapping themselves in the cycle of poverty. And ALL those people are Americans and ALL had the opportunity to leave the island for the US to find education, job skills and good work.... but that would have required HARD EFFORT on their part. Instead, they all chose to live a simple island life in their shanties, off the grid and making babies.
It's like that old saying. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." Puerto Ricans have American citizenship, but we can't make them live like the rest of us mainland Americans with our college educations, trapped in stupid rush hour traffic every work day, and being eyeballs in debt.
Instead, they prefer to speak Spanish and live on a beautiful Carribbean island and be non-materialistic. But that mostly idyllic life comes at a price. And that price is that if a hurricane hits the island, those little low cost of living shantytowns become death traps. Unreachable without helicopters, and too numerous to reach every one of them in a timely manner, let alone fix their power connections quickly, or clear their roads easily.
This situation is very much like Aesop's fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant.. the US mainland is the family of Ants, and the Puerto Ricans are the Grasshopper.
Quote:
One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.
"What!" cried the Ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"
"I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the Grasshopper; "I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone."
The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust.
"Making music, were you?" they cried. "Very well; now dance!" And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.
ok, explain how the independent study got to the numbers and their method.
again, if there are no names attached to the numbers and no actual death certificates and no medical record to back up that number then is suspect at best.
any insurance company would deny all claims if your proof of death is a study done by a university.
"The study concluded that the initial death toll of 64 only included those killed directly by hurricanes Maria and Irma - either by drowning, flying debris or building collapse.
George Washington University also counted those who died in the six months following the storm as a result of poor healthcare provision and a lack of electricity and clean water."
What's despicable is the bankrupt Puerto Rican government coming up with $300K to pay the George Washington University to count the deaths after Hurricane Maria.
1. $300K is an outrageous amount to pay for that "study". George Washington University should be really ashamed of themselves to present a bill for their services in that amount.
2. The $300K could have been much better used to buy new roofing material for all of their homes still covered in blue FEMA tarps.
It seems to me that the Puerto Rican government and the Dems are working overtime to make Trump look bad, instead of helping the islanders get back on their feet.
300K?
How about Trump skips one of his golfing trips to Mar-a-Lago, each of which costs taxpayers approximately $3.6 million?
That's more than ten times the cost of the study.
Just think how many new roofs and houses could be built huh?
It was a cluster-ef of several different agencies, just like Katrina. One glaring example is the pallets of water left unattended. Another example was Trump's comments and the idiotic throwing of paper towels. All around, if it was handled better, most of the 2,900 deaths could have been prevented.
I agree but would add that by "handled better" there would have had to have been A LOT better effort put into infrastructure in the years prior to the storm. You can't fix all that mess in a month or less under the best of conditions let alone after a major hurricane.
Back when I was in college there was a bad ice storm and parts of the town STILL were without power 3 weeks later and that was with a modern electrical grid and the ability to easily bring in replacement supplies by rail without bridges washed out and so forth.
P.S. I would note that Trump saying stupid\offensive stuff makes him look like a turd (as usual) but doesn't really change the reality of suffering and death tolls.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
