Trump admin defends response to Hurricane Maria after new study finds alarming new death toll

[DonViejo]

Source: USA Today



Trump administration defends response to Hurricane Maria after new study finds alarming new death toll

John Fritze, USA TODAY Published 9:04 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2018 | Updated 9:17 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2018

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump supports “full accountability” in assessing the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, a top aide said Tuesday, but the White House did not directly address a new estimate that pegs that number in the thousands.

Responding to a George Washington University study that found nearly 3,000 people died in last year’s storm, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the Trump administration supports “ensure a full accountability and transparency of fatalities.”

“The American people, including those grieving the loss of a loved one, deserve no less,” Sanders said in a statement.

From September 2017 to February 2018, 2,975 people died, according to the study by George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, which was commissioned by the Puerto Rican government. That is a stunning increase over the 64 deaths counted by Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s administration.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/28/donald-trump-aide-defends-response-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria/1128145002/

[tanyev]

1. Just think how much worse it would have been without Trump's awesome paper towel free throws.

[Mc Mike]

6. I remember that gif 'the quicker fucker upper.'

[Roy Rolling]

2. 64 reported fatalities

The governor of Puerto Rico is as big of a liar as the POTUS.

Politicians and modern media. Is this what's evolved? Propaganda on steroids?

[Botany]

3. Trump only 16 people died in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Remember Zinke's hometown 2-person power contractor

Small Montana firm lands Puerto Rico’s biggest contract to get the power back on


By Steven Mufson, Jack Gillum, Aaron C. Davis and Arelis R. Hernández
October 23, 2017

For the sprawling effort to restore Puerto Rico's crippled electrical grid, the territory's state-owned utility has turned to a two-year-old company from Montana that had just two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria made landfall. The company, Whitefish Energy, said last week that it had signed a $300 million contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to repair and reconstruct large portions of the island's electrical infrastructure. The contract is the biggest yet issued in the troubled relief effort.

<...>

The power authority, also known as PREPA, opted to hire Whitefish rather than activate the "mutual aid" arrangements it has with other utilities. For many years, such agreements have helped U.S. utilities — including those in Florida and Texas recently — to recover quickly after natural disasters. The unusual decision to instead hire a tiny for-profit company is drawing scrutiny from Congress and comes amid concerns about bankrupt Puerto Rico's spending as it seeks to provide relief to its 3.4 million residents, the great majority of whom remain without power a month after the storm.

"The fact that there are so many utilities with experience in this and a huge track record of helping each other out, it is at least odd why [the utility] would go to Whitefish," said Susan F. Tierney, a former senior official at the Energy Department and state regulatory agencies. "I'm scratching my head wondering how it all adds up."


<...>

Whitefish Energy is based in Whitefish, Mont., the home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Its chief executive, Andy Techmanski, and Zinke acknowledge knowing one another — but only, Zinke's office said in an email, because Whitefish is a small town where "everybody knows everybody." One of Zinke's sons "joined a friend who worked a summer job" at one of Techmanski's construction sites, the email said. Whitefish said he worked as a "flagger."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/small-montana-firm-lands-puerto-ricos-biggest-contract-to-get-the-power-back-on/2017/10/23/31cccc3e-b4d6-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.1ae9be2097ac

[riversedge]

5. yes, but thanks for the reminder.