FEMA removes 'bad' stats about Puerto Rico, puts them back after backlash

[kpitcher]

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/10/fema-deletes-information-about-lack-of-water-and-electricity-in-puerto-rico/


On Thursday, just five per cent of Puerto Rico had electricity and only 50 per cent had water. That information was readily available on the FEMA website as late as Thursday afternoon. But now it's gone, while more positive information, such as statistics about the percentage of hospitals open (92 per cent) and the percentage of grocery stores open (65 per cent), are still being made available.


Getting caught at Propaganda defeats the purpose

[Zippyjuan]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4943476/Trump-heads-Puerto-Rico-survey-hurricane-damage.html


'In Texas and Florida we get an A-plus,' Trump told reporters. 'And I'll tell you what, I think we've done just as good in Puerto Rico and it's actually a much tougher situation.



Puerto Rico wasn't a "real catastrophe" like US hurricanes anyways.


“If you look at the — every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds of people that died and what happened here with a storm that was just totally overbearing. No one has ever seen anything like that. What is your death count?" he said.

"Sixteen," responded Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.

https://www.vox.com/2017/10/3/16411488/trump-remarks-puerto-rico

[goldenequity]

Puerto Rico wasn't a "real catastrophe" like US hurricanes anyways.

What is your death count?" he said.

"Sixteen," responded Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.

https://www.vox.com/2017/10/3/16411488/trump-remarks-puerto-rico

2 hours ago...
Hurricane Maria killed 64 more than 4,600 people in Puerto Rico, 70 times the official toll
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44294366

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/8F97/production/_101795763_mediaitem101795762.jpg

MAGA

[Suzanimal]

After $3.8B Spend, Puerto Rico Power Grid Still 'Highly Fragile'

(NEWSER) – After an eight-month, $3.8 billion federal effort to try to end the longest blackout in United States history, officials say Puerto Rico's public electrical authority, the nation's largest, is almost certain to collapse again when the next hurricane hits this island of 3.3 million people. "It's a highly fragile and vulnerable system that really could suffer worse damage than it suffered with Maria in the face of another natural catastrophe," Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rossello says. Another weather disaster is increasingly likely as warmer seas turbocharge the strongest hurricanes into even more powerful and wetter storms, the AP reports. Federal forecasters say there's a 75% likelihood that the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially begins Friday, will produce between five and nine hurricanes.

"It's inevitable that Puerto Rico will get hit again," says Assistant Secretary Bruce Walker, head of the US Department of Energy's Office of Electricity, which is planning the long-term redesign of the grid run by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Despite billions plowed into the grid since Maria hit on Sept. 20, 2017, Puerto Rican officials warn that it could take far less than a Category 4 storm like Maria to cause a blackout like the one that persists today, with some 11,820 homes and businesses still without power. "The grid is there, but the grid isn't there. It's teetering," says Hector Pesquera, Puerto Rico's commissioner of public safety. Federal officials and Puerto Rican leaders blame decades of mismanagement that left the island's power authority more than $9 billion in debt after declaring bankruptcy last year.

http://www.newser.com/story/259983/after-38b-spend-puerto-rico-power-grid-still-teetering.html

[euphemia]

We are in hurricane season again. PR is going to get hammered again. They have had a year and only the well-to-do have their property and electricity in good shape. The mayor of San Juan has not gone a day without a fresh blowout and color. Make up, and fresh clothing. She has hideous taste but she always looks as if she just stepped out of the salon. Clearly not someone who is doing without.

Coming down the pipeline: move the poor on to the continent where they will claim eligibility for nanny state benefits.

[angelatc]

2 hours ago...
Hurricane Maria killed 64 more than 4,600 people in Puerto Rico, 70 times the official toll
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44294366



MAGA

This is a case of people calculating "as a result of" differently. The government is only counting people who died as an immediate effect of the storm, while Harvard is counting people who died months later.

[EBounding]

1040217897703026689
1040220855400386560

[timosman]

Population - 3,337,177 - means 30,000 per year dying of old age.

[Zippyjuan]

Flashlights? You don't need 'em. Trump distributes aid to Puerto Rico. Much of the country still had no electricity for almost a year later. Everything is about what makes Trump look good or bad.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju2_Fr_N01Q

[Zippyjuan]

Now Trump saying power was off before the hurricane even hit Puerto Rico. "They are trying to make me look bad!"

1040730663832498176

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/406809-trump-cites-geraldo-rivera-on-puerto-rico-when-did-people-start-dying


Trump cites Geraldo Rivera on Puerto Rico: ‘When did people start dying?’


President Trump on Friday tweeted a quote of Fox News's Geraldo Rivera ripping media coverage this week of the president's false claim that Democrats inflated the death count from last year's hurricanes in Puerto Rico in order to "to make [him] look as bad as possible."

“’They say all these people died in the storm in Puerto Rico, yet 70% of the power was out before the storm," he tweeted, tagging Rivera's Twitter account.

"So when did people start dying? At what point do you recognize that what they are doing is a political agenda couched in the nice language of journalism?’ @GeraldoRivera” he added.

About 96 percent of Puerto Rico residents had power before Hurricane Maria hit, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Trump came under fire this week for calling the federal response to two hurricanes that killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico an “unsung success.”

“The job that FEMA, and law enforcement and everybody did working along with the governor in Puerto Rico, I think was tremendous," Trump added. "I think that Puerto Rico was an incredible, unsung success,” he said.

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-angry-at-paper-towel-throw-footage-hurricanes-florence-maria-2018-9


Trump is reportedly upset about old video footage showing him throwing rolls of paper towels at first-responders in Puerto Rico


As Hurricane Florence continued its destructive path in North and South Carolina on Friday, President Donald Trump has reportedly been fixated on unflattering news reports about his response to Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico in September 2017.

Trump has particularly been irritated by video footage of him throwing rolls of paper towels to a crowd of relief workers on the island, according to a Washington Post report published Thursday. Trump had characterized his gestures as good-natured, but the footage prompted accusations that Trump lacks empathy.

"They had these beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels," Trump said during an interview with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in October. "And I came in and there was a crowd of a lot of people. And they were screaming and they were loving everything. I was having fun, they were having fun. They said, 'Throw 'em to me! Throw 'em to me Mr. President!'"

"The next day they said, 'Oh, it was so disrespectful to the people,'" he added. "It was just a made-up thing."

The death toll in Puerto Rico in the immediate aftermath of Maria grew from six to 13 by the time Trump arrived on the island. But later that day, the number grew to 34, according to The Post. Millions of homes and businesses lost power after hurricane made landfall, making it the largest blackout in US history and the second-largest in the world.

"I'm not to blame for this," Trump said about Maria at one point, according to one of his advisers cited by The Post.

Trump resurfaced the debate this week when he boasted about his administration's response to the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico.

"Puerto Rico was incredibly successful," Trump said on Tuesday, adding that the island was fraught with issues prior to the hurricane. "It was one of the best jobs that's ever been done with respect to what this is all about."


It took more than a year to restore electricity to all of Puerto Rico after the storm.