{"slug":"hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-response","title":"Hurricane Maria and the Federal Abandonment of Puerto Rico","date":"2017-09-20","lastUpdated":"2018-08-28","description":"Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, as a Category 4 storm, destroying virtually the entire electrical grid and causing catastrophic damage. The Trump administration's federal response was widely characterized as inadequate, slow, and dismissive — contributing to an estimated 2,975 deaths above the normal mortality baseline, a toll not acknowledged by the government for nearly a year.","summary":"Maria caused the largest blackout in U.S. history and destroyed Puerto Rico's infrastructure. The Trump administration delayed FEMA resources, deployed far fewer personnel and supplies than comparable mainland disasters, slow-walked waiver of the Jones Act, sent paper towels rather than aid at a critical moment, and accused Puerto Rican officials of corruption when they asked for more help. Harvard researchers estimated 2,975 excess deaths; the Trump administration initially reported 64.","category":"federal-dismantlement","severity":"extreme","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972","title":"Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria","publisher":"New England Journal of Medicine / Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health"},{"url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/puerto-rico-trump.html","title":"Trump Visits Puerto Rico and Lobs Paper Towels Into a Crowd","publisher":"The New York Times"},{"url":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/28/nearly-3000-people-died-hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-new-study-estimates/","title":"Nearly 3,000 people died in Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico is now revising the official death toll.","publisher":"The Washington Post"},{"url":"https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-puerto-rico-c0de6b0ca1784c618dc12c11b5c69ee7","title":"FEMA spent $1 billion less on Puerto Rico than on Texas, Florida after storms","publisher":"The Associated Press"},{"url":"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-18-367","title":"2017 Hurricanes and Wildfires: Initial Observations on the Federal Response and Key Recovery Challenges","publisher":"Government Accountability Office"},{"url":"https://www.npr.org/2017/09/27/553984314/trump-waives-jones-act-for-puerto-rico-relief","title":"Trump Waives Jones Act For Puerto Rico Relief","publisher":"NPR"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["Puerto-Rico","hurricane-maria","disaster-response","first-term","FEMA","racial-discrimination","neglect"],"relatedEntries":[],"timeline":[{"date":"2017-09-20","title":"Hurricane Maria makes landfall","summary":"Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds. Nearly the entire electrical grid — serving 3.4 million U.S. citizens — is destroyed. Major hospitals, water treatment plants, and communications infrastructure are knocked out."},{"date":"2017-09-25","title":"Trump attacks San Juan mayor on Twitter","summary":"San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz tearfully pleads for federal help while wading through floodwaters. Trump responds on Twitter calling her leadership 'poor' and accusing Puerto Ricans of 'want[ing] everything to be done for them.'"},{"date":"2017-09-27","title":"Jones Act waived — 7 days after landfall","summary":"Trump waives the Jones Act shipping restriction for Puerto Rico — but only for 10 days, and only after significant public pressure. The Jones Act had been waived immediately for Texas and Florida after Harvey and Irma."},{"date":"2017-10-03","title":"Trump visits Puerto Rico — throws paper towels","summary":"Trump visits Puerto Rico 12 days after landfall. In a widely criticized moment, he throws paper towels into a crowd of storm victims at a relief distribution center. He compares Maria favorably to 'a real catastrophe like Katrina' and praises the low (official) death toll of 16."},{"date":"2017-12-01","title":"Power still out for most of the island","summary":"Three months after Maria, power has been restored to less than half the island. People on dialysis, ventilators, and other power-dependent medical equipment are dying. Puerto Rico's official death toll remains under 100."},{"date":"2018-05-01","title":"Harvard study: 2,975 excess deaths","summary":"Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health publish a study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimating 2,975 excess deaths above the normal mortality baseline in the six months following Maria — nearly 50 times the official count."},{"date":"2018-08-28","title":"Puerto Rico officially revises death toll to 2,975","summary":"The government of Puerto Rico officially revises the death toll to 2,975, confirming the Harvard study's methodology and findings."},{"date":"2018-09-12","title":"Trump tweets that the death toll is a Democratic fabrication","summary":"Trump tweets that the death toll of 3,000 is '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.' This is factually false — the study was conducted by Harvard researchers and confirmed by the Puerto Rican government."}],"location":{"name":"Puerto Rico, U.S. Territory","lat":18.2208,"lng":-66.5901},"custom":{"era":"first-term","posture":"reported","warCrimeClassification":"potential","internationalLaw":[{"statute":"International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights","article":"Article 6","provision":"Right to life — state obligation to protect life includes adequate disaster response for its own citizens; discriminatory neglect causing mass death is a violation"},{"statute":"International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights","article":"Article 12","provision":"Right to the highest attainable standard of health — failure to restore medical infrastructure for months violated this right"}],"iccRelevance":false,"civilianCasualties":2975,"victims":"Estimated 2,975 excess deaths above normal mortality baseline in Puerto Rico in the months following Hurricane Maria (Harvard School of Public Health, 2018)","perpetrators":"President Donald Trump (directed federal response and minimized death toll); FEMA Administrator Brock Long; Secretary Elaine Duke","structuredVictims":[{"group":"Puerto Rican residents","status":"2,975 estimated excess deaths from inadequate federal disaster response","count":2975}],"structuredPerpetrators":[{"name":"Donald Trump","role":"President of the United States","institution":"White House"},{"name":"Brock Long","role":"FEMA Administrator","institution":"FEMA"}],"updateLog":[{"date":"2018-09-12","summary":"Updated with Trump's denial of the death toll and Puerto Rico's official revision."},{"date":"2018-08-28","summary":"Updated with Puerto Rico's official revision of the death toll to 2,975."}]}}