Puerto Rico storm deaths may be in hundreds: reports

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When US President Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico in early October in the aftermath of the severe damage caused by Hurricane Maria, he praised the American territory for the low number of deaths.

At the time the official count was 16 and Trump said Puerto Ricans should be “proud” of that figure, comparing it favorably with what happened on the American mainland as a result of Hurricane Katrina, “a real catastrophe” which killed almost 2,000 people in 2005.

“Everybody around this table, and everybody watching, can really be very proud of what's taken place in Puerto Rico,” he said.

But since then, separate investigations by American media organizations have questioned the official death toll of the authorities in Puerto Rico.

The number has since been raised to 64, but the investigations have put the total much, much higher.

The Center for Investigative Journalism (known by its Spanish acronym CPI), CNN and the New York Times all found hundreds of storm-related deaths.

US President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 3. /Reuters photo

CNN raised questions about the accuracy of the count in a report on November 20. It said a survey of 112 funeral homes – about half the total number in Puerto Rico – had discovered 499 deaths including "indirect deaths," which are usually included in official death tolls on the island and involve circumstances "in which a person likely would be alive if not for the storm and its aftermath."

In one example, a man who died in a house fire started by an oil lamp he was only using because of the storm-caused power outage was not included in the national statistics.

Further doubts were raised when the CPI followed up with data from the island’s Demographic Registry showing that in the 40 days after María hit, at least 985 additional people died, when compared to the same period in 2016.

And noting that Hurricane Irma also passed through the island days before María, it said the figure rises to 1,065 deaths if September and October are included.

The New York Times followed up with a report on December 9 citing daily mortality data from the Demographic Registry showing that in the 42 days following the hurricane making landfall, 1,052 more people died than usual when compared to the previous two years.

"Before the hurricane, I had an average of 82 deaths daily," Wanda Llovet, director of the Demographic Registry, told the newspaper in a mid-November interview. "Now I have an average of 118 deaths daily."

The Times attributes the excess deaths to the devastation caused by the hurricane, which made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20 as a Category 4 hurricane.

An aerial view shows the damage to the Guajataca dam in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico on September 23. /Reuters photo

Experts such as John Mutter, a professor at Columbia University, said a storm as powerful as Maria would be expected to kill hundreds of people, not dozens.

Most in the territory were not actually killed by the hurricane itself; many died of secondary causes like inadequate medical care due to a lack of electricity.

“When compared to the same time period from 2016, there was a significant increase in deaths, especially in hospitals and nursing homes,” CPI said, adding that the majority of deaths were men and women over 50 years old with conditions such as diabetes, kidney disease, and pneumonia and other respiratory diseases.

“The revelation of this new data also coincides with accounts from relatives’ reports of victims that point to problems with essential health services such as dialysis, ventilators, oxygen, and other critical circumstances caused by the lack of power in homes and hospitals throughout Puerto Rico,” the organization said.

It said the official death count was due to poor methodology being used to analyze and account for cases.

Although in some parts of the United States, medical examiners include only direct deaths, such as those caused by drowning in floodwaters, Puerto Rico counts deaths caused indirectly by storms.

'Fairly compelling evidence'

“That is why the gap between the official death toll and the hundreds of additional deaths is so striking,” the Times said.

When CNN first reported, an island official dismissed the claims of hundreds of deaths as rumors and even as the independent investigations continued, other officials bedded down on the stance that the additional deaths were due to natural causes.

But the administration belatedly seems open to reviewing the figures with Governor Ricardo Rossello, who last month insisted that reporting protocols were “adequate,” now encouraging people to come forward with information.

José López, a demographer at the Demographic Registry, acknowledged the need for a rethink. “We have realized with this process that there is a need to strengthen the documentation of the causes of death and the circumstances surrounding the causes of death that have caused this issue," he said. "That has to be documented.”

Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch of the US National Center for Health Statistics in Maryland, has also conceded that there is “fairly compelling evidence” that the increase in deaths is probably due to the hurricane. “That’s a lot,” he said.