Yes, Mr. Trump, Hurricane Maria Was a 'Real Catastrophe' - NYT Editorial Board

[DonViejo]

The president said the administration did a “fantastic job” in responding to the 2017 storm in Puerto Rico. A new estimate of the death toll says otherwise.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Sept. 2, 2018




It has become customary to gauge the scale of calamities by the official count of the dead. In this perspective, Puerto Rico’s revision of the death toll from last September’s horrific Hurricane Maria to 2,975 from 64 elevates the storm to one of the greatest catastrophes of recent times in the United States, far exceeding Hurricane Katrina and nearly equaling the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

That should prod the federal government and the American people to finally provide the attention and resources that this ravaged American territory still sorely needs. Alas, that was not President Trump’s response to the latest and most authoritative analysis of the devastation wreaked by the great storm.

On Wednesday, the president smugly declared that “we did a fantastic job,” and he expounded on geography and pre-hurricane problems with the electrical grid as reasons for the level of destruction, just as he did in the immediate aftermath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma. Ten months ago, he contrasted the then-modest estimate of the death toll in Puerto Rico with that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which he called a “real catastrophe.”

No hint of horror at the scale of suffering. No sign of recognition that fellow Americans had gone through one of our era’s most wrenching disasters. No words of sympathy. No promises that his government would be better prepared next time.

The president appears unaware that the Federal Emergency Management Agency acknowledged in an after-action report in July that its response to Hurricane Maria had been chaotic and tragically inadequate. The governor of Puerto Rico, Mr. Trump blithely avowed on Wednesday, was “happy with the job we’ve done.”

True, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, whose administration has been blamed for lack of preparation for a storm of this magnitude, has not been critical of Mr. Trump, but on Tuesday the governor acknowledged that he had made mistakes and said “everybody’s going to be held accountable and everybody’s going to be expected to make changes.”

The mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, who has been scathing about the president’s attitude, minced no words: “President Trump continues to demonstrate his inability to understand what his job in this crisis was all about: This was never about him, this was never about politics, this was about saving lives.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/opinion/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-death-toll.html

[Gothmog]

1. 3,000 American Citizens died in this hurricane in large part due to trump being an idiot