It only took an hour or two for President Donald Trump's attempt to downplay the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria to be undercut by more accurate data. On Thursday, that effort looks even more starkly misguided with the release of new, much-higher estimates of mortality after the storm. In early October, though, Trump was almost celebratory. Sitting at a table with the island's governor, he sought to demonstrate that he and his administration were prioritizing recovery efforts, using the failures of the George W. Bush administration on the Gulf Coast in 2005 as a counterpoint. "Every death is a horror," Trump said. "But if you look at a real catastrophe like [Hurricane] 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 has ever seen anything like this." He asked Gov. Ricardo Rosselló what the death toll was from Maria and was told that, at that moment, it was 16. EDITORIAL: How can the U.S. atone for 4,600 dead in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria? "Sixteen people certified. Sixteen people versus in the thousands," Trump crowed. "You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud." By the time Trump got on Air Force One to head back to the mainland, that death toll had already been revised upward to 34. It kept trickling upward, eventually landing at 64. For Trump, the problem seems primarily to have been political. His administration, lauded for its handling of the storms that struck Texas and Florida, was being criticized for its slow response to the situation in Puerto Rico and its failure to be prepared for the storm in advance. By downplaying the death toll and, more specifically, by comparing it to the political gold-standard in failed hurricane responses, Trump hoped to deflect that criticism. EDITORIAL: Government continues to fail at true post-Harvey recovery But even after the number of deaths was pegged at 64, it was widely understood that the figure was far too low. While determining the number of storm-related deaths concretely is often almost impossible for both practical and political reasons, it was obvious that the politically convenient double-digit numbers being used were wrong. Comparing annual mortality figures to the number of deaths reported after the storm, for example, showed a much bigger toll. The New York Times put the count at over 1,000 by the beginning of November - including an estimate of 556 deaths at the time of Trump's visit. That would be nearly 35 times as many as Trump had insisted. On Thursday, the Times reported that the government of Puerto Rico would give a higher figure to Congress in a request for additional recovery funds. The new figure: 1,427. More than 22 times as many as the previous estimate. In that light, the comparison to Katrina looks far worse - as does Trump's insistence that, on his watch, the government had avoided "the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died." EDITORIAL: Houston after Harvey should be a national priority. Trump made us a punchline. It's worth noting that the new official estimate from Puerto Rico is substantially lower than an estimate determined by a survey on the island conducted a research team from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Their estimate was that more than 4,600 people could have died after the storm, a total that makes Katrina pale in comparison. The Washington Post's fact-checking team was quick to note that this figure was a significant outlier in estimates of the mortality rate and that the margin of error on the study was very, very large, swinging from about 800 to 8,500 total deaths. OPINION: Don't let Trump twist truth of Harvey boat rescues The new figure of 1,427, though, is bad enough. Every death is, as the president said, a horror. What's unclear now is how many of those deaths could have been prevented by better preparation or a more effective response. (After the storm hit, Trump blamed the "very big ocean" separating Puerto Rico from the continental U.S. for slowing relief efforts.) Comparisons to Katrina were inevitable with the newly released death toll, given how close the two figures are. But it's Trump himself who set that disaster as the example to avoid. According to Trump's own rhetoric, Maria was a "real catastrophe." Bump is a correspondent for The Washington Post based in New York.<doc-sep>At a Glance For the first time, the Puerto Rican government admitted Hurricane Maria killed at least 1,427 on the island. The island's government conceded this news in a report filed to Congress earlier this week. Prior to this report, the government's official storm death toll was 64. For the first time since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico nearly 11 months ago, the U.S. territory's government has conceded that the monster storm was responsible for hundreds of deaths on the island. The government said in a report to Congress this week that Maria killed at least 1,427 people in Puerto Rico. For months, the Puerto Rican government's official death toll stood at 64. (MORE: A Look Back at Hurricane Maria, a Devastating Storm) Advertisement With doubts that the government accurately counted the number of deaths following the storm, experts have done numerous studies to calculate the number of lives that were actually claimed by Maria. Conservative estimates put the death toll at 1,100 or higher, while some studies pegged the number of deaths as high as 4,500. A New York Times investigation said it was likely at least 1,000 Puerto Ricans were killed by the storm in the U.S. territory. This new report makes Maria the second-deadliest hurricane to strike Puerto Rico since records began in the mid-19th century, according to data from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. Only the San Ciriaco hurricane of August 1899 was deadlier, with an official estimate of 3,369 killed. The report submitted to the U.S. government earlier this week was part of a $139 billion reconstruction plan for Puerto Rico. The government has also commissioned an academic study that's expected to provide more detailed information in the coming weeks, according to the Associated Press.<doc-sep>Several trailers filled with donations for Hurricane Maria victims were found rotting at a state elections office in Puerto Rico this week. The New York Times reported Friday that at least 10 trailers full of food, water and baby supplies were broken open and overrun with rats. The Times noted that local radio station, Radio Isla, published a video showing cases of items such as beans, Tylenol and water covered in rat and lizard droppings. ADVERTISEMENT According to the Times, the Puerto Rico elections commission offices were used as a collection center for donations from private entities and nonprofit groups after the island was ravaged by Hurricane Maria last year. Once they were collected, the donations were then distributed by the National Guard. As the severity of the crisis diminished, the donations were then reportedly stored in trailers in the parking lot of the election bureau’s San Juan offices, where they remained despite continued problems in the region. Officials confirmed to the Times that the items had remained in trailers for almost a year. “I agree, it should have been handed out as soon as possible,” Maj. Paul Dahlen, a spokesman for the National Guard, told the Times, adding that some of the materials were received after the National Guard ended its mission in May. Nicolás Gautier, interim president of the elections council, told CBS News that "whatever was left after the National Guard left was put in those containers.” “In one of these containers was food for dogs and apparently several of the boxes were broken," he added. "After the placement in the van, that brings a lot of rats and it infected everything.” In a statement to the Times, the National Guard also said the containers seen in the video were being used to store food that had arrived after its expiration date. The statement also said items in the trailers that were not spoiled would be delivered to nonprofit groups soon. The Times report comes almost a year after Hurricane Maria devastated the region and left many without power and electricity. Many have argued the Trump administration's response to the disaster was too slow and not extensive enough, and helped play a role in the island's ongoing fight to restore normality. On Thursday, the Puerto Rican government acknowledged that more than 1,400 people likely died on the island because of the storm, roughly 20 times the previous official estimate.<doc-sep>
Update: The Puerto Rico National Guard announced on August 17 it has completed distribution of donated merchandise that was found unused, and left behind, in shipping containers. The work to distribute the donated items came after news reports uncovered some donations unused, and others spoiled, or soiled in animal feces. Donated food sent to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria were left to rot in a parking lot of a government facility, CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reported Friday. Additionally, about 10 containers filled with non-perishable supplies sat at the government facility for 11 months. Video of supplies covered in rodent droppings was first posted by a Puerto Rican radio station Radio Isla on Thursday. When Begnaud visited, the trailers with the containers were locked Friday. The National Guard said in a statement the donations that were highlighted were not distributed because they were expired. Stored items that were not expired would be distributed in the coming days, the National Guard said. ¿Alguien en el Gobierno nos podría explicar esto? Posted by Jesus Rodriguez Garcia on Thursday, August 9, 2018 Nicolás Gautier, an official at the facility, told CBS News one of of the containers had "food for dogs, and apparently several of the boxes were broken. After the placement in the van, that brings a lot of rats and it infected everything." The goods were at Puerto Rico's elections commission, which has been serving as a collection site for donations. The Puerto Rican government said earlier this week that there were 1,427 deaths "more than normal" in the four months after Hurricanes Maria and Irma, which passed just north of the island. Initially, Puerto Rican officials had said there were only 64 deaths from the storm. A CBSN Originals team was in Puerto Rico two weeks ago. They visited a morgue that has a backlog of roughly 300 unidentified bodies waiting to undergo autopsy. The facility has been backlogged for years, but the issue was exacerbated by Hurricane Maria, the team reported. Begnaud said that five 18-wheeler units housing unidentified bodies sit in the back of the facility, and that one trailer has housed people for at least up to three years. He said that the CBSN Originals team was invited to visit the site at the request of the governor's press secretary following news reports on the island about a foul odor coming from the back of the facility. "We were taken to one of the trailers. The door was open. And the smell was pungent," Begnaud said. "That you would expect ... because there are bodies inside. But the bottom line: when we were there, we did not smell a foul odor." A forthcoming document from Puerto Rico's Department of Health, however, is expected to make mention of an odor coming from the facility, according to Begnaud. Reports on the issue appear to have prompted Puerto Rican officials to take action. They recently reached out to FEMA requesting money and personnel. On Tuesday, 13 Puerto Rican National Guardsmen arrived at the forensics sciences center where they will serve as mortuary officers, helping to receive and transfer bodies. Radiologists, pathologists and dentists have also been requested to help process the backlog of unidentified bodies, and are expected to arrive on the island in the coming weeks. Begnaud reports that the backlog is just one of many issues on the island. While things have improved nearly a year after Maria hit, the problems in Puerto Rico are so systemic and have been around for so long that even improvements that are being made are only pecking away at the surface, he said.