EDITORIAL: A grim, tragic toll in Puerto Rico

Sept. 03--The worst thing about the grim news on the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is realizing that so many of those people did not have to die.

Nearly a year after the storm slammed the island last September, a report from George Washington University estimates that the death toll from Maria in Puerto Rico was nearly 2,975.

That's a far cry from the 16 deaths initially reported by Puerto Rican officials, a figure that President Donald Trump bragged about when he visited a few weeks after the storm. Trump compared that toll to what he called "a real catastrophe" like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and said that everyone should be "very proud" at the low number. Two weeks later, when asked how he would rate his administration's response to the hurricane, Trump said he would rate it a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

By that time, many people on the island were cautioning that the toll was much higher and that communications were so wrecked that no one knew how bad things were. There were urgent requests for more federal help.

After a few months, the official toll was raised to 64.

And now we know that what was continuing to happen on Puerto Rico was indeed a "real catastrophe." The new figures are considerably higher than Katrina's death toll of 1,883. They make Maria one of the worst natural disasters to strike the United States.

Puerto Rico's governor requested the study. Researchers looked at deaths, both during and in the aftermath of the storm, for the next six months.

Investigations are continuing, but the study so far shows that people were dying at a much higher rate than normal, especially in the island's poorest areas.

People died of disease and injury because they did not get medical care. People died because homes, hospitals, roads, electric lines, water supplies, sanitation systems and communications were ravaged and help did not come.

There is plenty of blame to go around, including failures on the part of Puerto Rican authorities.

It doesn't help that the commonwealth, treated much like a second-rate colony, suffers from decades of neglect, mismanagement and exploitative U.S. laws and regulations.

The biggest share of blame lies squarely at the feet of the federal government of the United States, which is supposed to move in when a disaster is too great for a locality to handle.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not have enough food, water and emergency supplies on hand and had not made adequate plans for transporting people and materials to the island. Not nearly enough disaster workers were sent in.

It is painfully obvious that officials in Washington, starting with the president, failed to respond to the deadly disaster in Puerto Rico in the same way that they would have anywhere else in the United States

The new death figures should spark efforts to do better. FEMA and local officials should make sure that better plans and adequate supplies are in place the next time disaster strikes.

Congress needs to provide more aid to help Puerto Rico improve its economy, get out from under debt and build better infrastructure.

Puerto Ricans are American citizens. It is this country's moral obligation to take care of them.

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