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BloombergOpinion
POLITICS & POLICY
Trump Failed the Americans of Puerto Rico
The death toll is now estimated at*4,645, and the president’s lack of engagement is largely to blame.
By*
Jonathan Bernstein
May 29, 2018, 3:32 PM EDT
[https://assets-bwbx-io]
Still waiting for help.
*
Photographer: Gary Williams/Getty Images
The death toll from Hurricane Maria appears to have been*4,645, despite the official count of 64.*That’s 4,645*citizens of the U.S. It’s a disgrace.
Tim O'Brien
@TimOBrien
Hurricane Katrina's death toll was about 1,830.Hurricane Camille's was about 260Hurricane Sandy's was about 230…*twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Sent via*Twitter Web Client.
View original*tweet.
To be sure,*the Trump administration isn’t entirely*responsible for this disaster. It’s going to be difficult, perhaps impossible, to assess how much of it had to do with the federal government’s indifference and ineffectiveness; how much was the fault of current*Puerto Rican government officials; and how much was the effects of long-term Puerto Rican poverty and structural conditions. And, in any case,*assistance and recovery for the Caribbean*island was going to be difficult, and the storm would have been devastating under the best of circumstances.
Even so, President Donald Trump’s reaction was awful. He*picked fightswith local government, and during his visit to the island he focused far more on*congratulating himself*than on doing something worth bragging about.
Worse, he didn’t follow up. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands simply disappeared from his*public statements, and there’s no reporting to indicate that anything was different behind closed doors. There’s no record of FEMA officials or anyone else being summoned to the White House and urged to do more. No evidence of high-level White House coordination of the efforts, such as they were, from the various agencies involved. In fact, the*best reporting on the government response, from Politico’s Danny Vinik, shows that it was botched from the get-go, with the government going all out to assist Houston but not Puerto Rico.
Experts agree. Writing at the Monkey Cage back in December,*Jeremy Konyndyk*pointed out*both the inherent difficulties of the situation and the limited effectiveness of business as usual, and concluded:
With FEMA understandably overmatched by this fall’s series of megastorms and faced with a uniquely challenging context in Puerto Rico, the Trump administration could have gotten creative: deploying its own international responders at scale, or seeking help from international partners. Inexplicably, it did neither. And the response suffered as a result.
Trump’s failure to act was*extremely important*because without presidential involvement, executive branch departments and agencies are not likely to mobilize, even though many of the the people involved are professionals, and most of them care deeply about doing their jobs well. **
We’ve seen in other circumstances the effects on agencies when they know they have to answer to the president. If the secretary of Homeland Security knows she will have to make a daily report to the president on what her department did that day about an acute problem, she’ll make sure she has an answer — and that’s exactly when bureaucrats find creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems. On the other hand, when the president has already declared mission accomplished and moved on, then even an awful continuing situation slides down the list of priorities.
That’s especially true for urgent needs for the people of Puerto Rico who do not have their own members of Congress to*put*pressure on those agencies. If the impetus doesn’t come from the president,*nothing’s going to happen.*The best long-term solution for Puerto Rico probably is statehood, but that’s not going to help the island right now, although it would be a fitting consequence of the failure to help these*citizens when they needed it*the most.
For some Americans, Trump’s constant stream of invective and controversy is simply another form of entertaining reality television. It isn’t. Trump isn’t a reality star anymore; he’s an elected official, with real and important responsibilities that he shirks.*What he does or*doesn’t do has huge practical consequences for all Americans. Sometimes those consequences are the difference between life and death.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Jonathan Bernstein*at*[email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Max Berley*at*[email protected]
Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.*
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where do those numbers come from exactly? i'm not saying it's wrong I just would like to see how they arrived at those numbers vs the numbers initially reported. did they all die immediately or did they die in the days and weeks after due to exposure etc..?Comment
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It is a Harvard study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/pr...rricane-maria/
They did an extensive survey and estimated about 14.3 deaths per thousand during the months after Maria, versus a normmal death rate of 8.8 deaths per thousand. The study is solid.
NEJM link:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972
It is a shameful chapter in our history. We need to have Congressional hearings on Maria, just like we did for Katrina.Comment
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so it's people that couldn't get their meds, oxygen, medical treatment etc.. sad.
yea i remember after katrina they had the rich areas rebuilt up and running but as soon as you got into the poor areas it was still a war zone like 5 years after the storm.
PR was probably much harder to deal with being an island. logistical nightmare.
scary thing is, this will be the new norm. warmer oceans = worse storms. there will be a day when Miami takes a direct hit from an f5, city will be gone.Comment
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Question is who is responsible for the shitty numbers trump mentioned!!
PR government or his administration?
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I hate that we always point fingers. Here's my question.. why couldn't the rest of the world help? Why couldn't Germany send some help? We help Germany militarily and economically, why couldn't they send some help to the US for once?Originally posted by boricuarage79 View Post
We had already dealt with 2 hurricanes in the US when the 3rd hit PR. Lots of people worked very hard to help. Yes we could have done better but God damn this constant negativity is a bit much.Comment
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LolOriginally posted by Bouncer View Post
Da fuq Germany gota do with PR... 90 percent of them don't even know where PR is at!or exist.. when they ask me where im from they think portugal!
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Wtf does Germany got to do with America? Why do we help you?Originally posted by boricuarage79 View Post
It's okay for the rest of the world to be selfish but America is expected to be the main funder of NATO etc..Comment
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Back up hausss... no one helpin me but myself.. u better check my passport..Originally posted by Bouncer View Post
My income is in dollars...
Again what germany gota do with US? Since when they ever helped american soil?
Reason why we have military here is cause of world war in the first place...
And what this gota do with my comment?
Who is to blame? PR government or Trump official's?
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your missing the bigger point. i'm not talking about you personally.Comment
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U missin my point...Originally posted by Bouncer View Post
Germany politician's suck. But they only deal with EU as far as i know.
I don't really follow politics to be honest
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I mean look how many soldiers they had in iraq. Not many
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They were smart. No reason for German boys to die for oil companies, the military industry and Wall Street billionaires.Originally posted by boricuarage79 View Post
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