Trumps och den amerikanska statens hantering av katastrofinsatser i USA

@FEMA will be w/Puerto Rico, USVI, every state, territory impacted by a disaster every day, supporting throughout their response & recovery

Trump Told Public Lies or Falsehoods Every Day for His First 40 Days

Everything that's been reported about deaths in Puerto Rico is at odds with the official count
Death tolls are the primary way we understand the impact of a disaster. And for nearly two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, as a humanitarian crisis was intensifying, the death toll was frozen at 16.

“Sixteen people certified,” Trump said on October 3 during his visit to the island, repeating a figure confirmed by the territory’s governor. "Everybody watching can really be very proud of what's taken place in Puerto Rico."

It was a moment that crystallized two conflicting narratives about the Puerto Rico disaster. The first one, from the federal government and Puerto Rico’s governor, is of a disaster that’s been managed well, with lives being saved and hospitals getting back up and running.

Lives surely have been saved in the response. But images and reports from the ground tell a story of people, cut off from basic supplies and health care, dying. They tell of hospitals running out of medication and fuel for their generators and struggling to keep up with the “avalanche of patients that came after the hurricane,” as one journalist put it.

90 percent of the 3.4 million American citizens on the island still don’t have power, and 35 percent still don’t have water to drink or bathe in. And given how deadly power outages can be, 45 deaths seems low, according to disaster experts.

We found reports of a total of 81 deaths linked directly or indirectly to the hurricane. Of those, 45 were the deaths certified by the government. The remaining 36 deaths were confirmed by local public officials or funeral directors, according to the reports. We also found another 450 reported deaths, most of causes still unknown, and reports of at least 69 people still missing.

Whitefish happened to be the first firm "available to arrive and they were the ones that first accepted terms and conditions for PREPA," Ricardo Ramos, the executive director of PREPA, the island's power authority, told reporters.

The Puerto Rico electric power company said Sunday that it is canceling a controversial $300 million contract it had signed with a small Montana-based company and tasked with a central role in repairing the territory’s hurricane-ravaged electric grid.

Whitefish, Mont., is the home of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, although the company said he played no role in securing the business. One of Zinke’s sons worked for Whitefish Energy over the summer.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday agreed to expand the use of disaster aid to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid and other infrastructure wrecked by Hurricane Maria, the White House said.

The new agreement will see FEMA cover 90 percent of the costs for rebuilding public infrastructure, up from the typical level of 75 percent.

Puerto Rico - home to 3.4 million Americans - is in bankruptcy, struggling with $72 billion in debt. Its finances were put under federal control last year.

Six weeks after Hurricane Maria hit, only about 30 percent of Puerto Rico’s power grid has been restored. Private sector estimates of total damage from Maria have ranged as high as $95 billion.

The White House is expected to deliver a new request for disaster aid to the U.S. Congress in mid-November to help defray costs from Maria and two other major hurricanes - Harvey and Irma - as well as damage caused by wildfires in the western United States.

It is not yet clear how big the federal tab for Puerto Rico will be.

“Obviously it’s going to be a big dollar figure,” the official said. “I know there won’t be any balking at the amount of money needed from the administration.”