Just the Facts: Hurricane Maria
A feature article by Arnav Chittibabu and Michael Hom
Just the Facts is a feature that seeks to dispel, demystify and decode the “facts” bandied about by state leaders, public figures and the media about a topical social issue.
Hurricane Maria was the most devastating hurricane to make landfall on Puerto Rico in 85 years. It was a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour. It couldn’t help but leave Puerto Rico in shambles.
Over a year after the hurricane occurred, on August 28, 2018, the Puerto Rican government released an estimation of the death toll: 2,975 deaths.
This estimate is 46 times higher than the previous count, which prompted President Trump to make a comment claiming that the estimate was false and that the death toll was closer to somewhere between 6 and 18. In addition, he said this new tally was the work of the Democrats to make him look bad by adding people who died from unrelated causes to the list. He then continued to claim that he raised billions to help rebuild Puerto Rico and he personally loves the island.
Who has the right numbers?
Days after the hurricane cut its deadly swath on the island, the Trump administration announced the death toll at 64. This tally was not an accurate count nor was it meant to be for the long term because it did not take into consideration the lingering effects of the disaster. Regardless, the death count reached more than 64. In addition, the study which came up with the number 2,975 was conducted by Milken Institute School of Public Health (the school of public health of George Washington University)–a third party that had no affiliations with the Democratic Party– making the second part of President Trump’s claim false.
However, the estimated death count of 2,975 may not be entirely accurate either. The word “estimate” is important. Researchers never claimed to have a definitive number. They are 95% confident that the number lies between 2,658 and 3,290. The highest estimate, 2,975, was derived from the data that last year there should have been around 13,633 deaths in Puerto Rico due to natural or other causes. A calamity like Hurricane Maria and the deaths it would cause were never considered factors in the estimated total deaths. In February 2018, a report came out that there were 16,608 observed deaths, meaning, if you do the math, there were 2,975 “excess” deaths. This implies that Hurricane Maria is responsible for all excess deaths.
Researchers put into account the number of natural deaths from past mortality patterns between 2010 to 2017; hence, Trump claiming that people dying of old age were added to the tally is false because it was added to the predicted section, not the excess. Nevertheless, the chances that estimate would have varied to the hundreds are very slim putting the total death count of Puerto Rico at a minimum of 2,500 people.
$31.6 billion was sent to the island to help rebuild it. Although it might seem a lot, it was a third of what was required to rebuild the island, which was $94.4 billion. In addition, only 12 percent of the funding was going to help rebuild the economy since the majority of it was needed to help the people. As a result, four months after the hurricane hit, around 500,000 of 1.5 million customers had electricity and 1,500 workers are required to work to speed up electricity recovery efforts.
[Sources: www.usatoday.com, www.cnn.com, www.pbs.org, www.nyt.com]