The media is still working overtime to turn Hurricane Maria into Trump's Katrina. And after all the hype, the death toll is in. And it's a lot less deadly than a month in Chicago.
Authorities in Puerto Rico raised the death toll from Hurricane Maria by 3 to 48 on Saturday based on a review of medical records.
The medical examiner concluded that the hurricane was the deciding factor in the three newly disclosed deaths, Secretary of Public Security Hector Pesquera said.
Precise details were not available, but one occurred in the central town of Caguas when a person was unable to get dialysis treatment after the storm knocked out power.
Another happened in nearby Juncos when a person with undisclosed respiratory problems could not get treatment.
The third occurred in the northern city of Carolina when a person suffering a heart attack was also unable to get treatment.
Every death is a tragedy. But these are not very high numbers. Puerto Rico has suffered largely because of infrastructure issues that predated Trump. The attempts at accusing President Trump of neglecting Puerto Rico or of causing mass deaths are a bizarre smear. And, like Katrina, the actual damage was heavily overblown by a media that is eager to run hit pieces now and fact check them later.
And that's the point Trump made on his visit to Puerto Rico.
President Trump told Puerto Rico officials during a visit to the hurricane-ravaged island Tuesday that they should be “proud” of a death toll that is lower than that of other disasters like Katrina.
“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here with really a storm that was just totally overpowering. Nobody's ever seen anything like this," Trump said.
He then paused and asked, “What is your death count?”
When told the number still stands at 16, Trump said, “Sixteen people versus in the thousands … you can be very proud."