In The News Donald Trump Doesn’t Care About Puerto Rico
“The idea that the scope of any hurricane ends when the winds themselves have died down betrays a stooge’s understanding of a disaster. Rational people, and those who’ve been through calamities, understand that cholera outbreaks after major storms are part of the catastrophe. That principle is applied to America’s recollection of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as people who die later from inhalation of toxic dust are added to the World Trade Center memorial. It is not a stretch of logic or science to understand that the deaths of people on dialysis from a lack of electricity in the week after the storm, or waterborne illness after the storm contaminated drinking-water sources, are attributable to Hurricane Maria. From the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane to Katrina and beyond, uncertainty and some measure of extrapolation have been present in every official measure of deaths from major disasters, as is the inclusion of indirect deaths and those caused some time after the actual incident passes. The partisan spin comes not in those elements, but in demanding that a hard count be provided in order to be recognized.”