16 tweets later, thin-skinned Trump can’t let San Juan’s mayor speak the truth about a higher death toll ahead...
The official death toll from the storm was 16, but like Harvey’s final death toll, it will be higher.
That didn’t stop Giant Yam from trying to take credit for its “success”.
“The loss of life — it’s always tragic — but it’s been incredible, the results that we’ve had with respect to loss of life,” the President said. “People can’t believe how successful that has been, relatively speaking.”
www.nydailynews.com/...
The reality will be much grimmer.
Laura Moscoso (data journalist at the Puerto Rico-based Center for Investigative Journalism):
About the piece that we published yesterday about the figures and the numbers that the government is saying are the deaths caused by Maria, I can tell you that today there may be more. But the official number is 15 deaths caused by—directly caused by Maria. But since yesterday, since we published our article, our phones have been ringing with many testimonies of many people around the island, in very faraway places, telling us that in hospitals, even in their own houses, and in the emergency centers established around the island for people to get supplies, many people are dying, are still dying, and they’re not being accounted for. And we don’t—the government hasn’t been able to go down there and see that for themselves.
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What I can tell you is this, right? For me, I’m very worried about the president’s visit to the island, because, for me, that can be a distraction from the important things that need to be happening here in Puerto Rico. As you said, we still have people that we don’t know where they are. We still have people that don’t have clean water. We still have very old people that lack tank oxygen, that lack the help in the hospital literally to survive and don’t—and that they don’t die. And now we’re going to have all these efforts for helping the people move into the security and the news coverage of President Trump, that I’m sure he’s not going to come here with water, and he’s not going to go into the rural areas to distribute water. He’s just going to be here for a few hours. But those few hours are very critical for us and for the government. And so, that’s like—that’s very controversial for me.
www.democracynow.org/...