Maria's Puerto Rican dead are being under-reported. It's not 16 and may be in the hundreds.

[pnwmom]

Last edited Sun Oct 1, 2017, 04:10 AM - Edit history (1)

http://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2017/09/marias-dead-in-puerto-rico-are-underreported/

Cotté is one of the unaccounted victims of the Category 5 hurricane that devastated all of Puerto Rico last week, with its sustained winds and gusts of up to 200 miles per hour. On Wednesday, the Government of Puerto Rico, still held that the official number of deaths as a result of the catastrophe was 16, but the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, for its initials in Spanish) has confirmed that there are dozens and could be hundreds in the final count.

SNIP

CPI sources in half a dozen hospitals said those bodies are piling up at the morgues of the 69 hospitals in Puerto Rico, of which 70% are not operating. The majority of the hospital morgues that provided information including Doctor’s Center in Bayamón and Santurce, Pavía Hospital in Santurce, the Manatí Medical Center, Dr. Pila in Ponce, the Río Piedras Medical Center, the Mayagüez Medical Center and the HIMA hospitals in Caguas and Bayamón, are at full capacity. Those hospitals are among the 18 that are partially operational.

Furthermore, this media outlet learned that the Institute of Forensic Sciences is also full of bodies and that allegedly 25 of those are hurricane victims. On Tuesday, the IFS informed that it had increased its storage capacity for bodies with a trailer that was obtained through DMORT federal program.

It’s unclear what is happening with the deceased that are at the morgues of the 51 hospitals that have had to close their doors, with which it has been impossible to communicate.

SNIP

“We’re finding dead people, people who have been buried. Related to the hurricane (we have) 19 dead, which the governor reported, but (people) have made common graves. We’ve been told people have buried their family members because they’re in places that have yet to be reached,” the Secretary told the CPI, while visibly shaken.

SNIP

Meanwhile, thousands of doctors and nurses are literally at home unable to work, said Dr. Joaquín Vargas, president of the Puerto Rico Primary Physicians Groups Association, who was at the COE to see if the government would set up an operations center where they could at least answer calls from citizens.

The CPI also learned that a large portion of specialized physicians is unable to work because hospitals don’t have supplies and the ability to conduct their procedures, nor basic resources such as fuel or electricity to run their medical practices.

[democratisphere]

1. There are many dead. But how many are missing or swept out to sea?

[pnwmom]

2. Many are missing. Their families have no way of contacting them. nt

[cwydro]

3. Sorry, but this reminds me of another DUer's hysterical claims regarding another hurricane.

That person is banned so I'm not calling her out.

It's obvious Puerto Rico is in dire straits, but I'm going to hold off on believing this until I see official accounts.

[pnwmom]

6. What is hysterical about the OP or about the article? n/t

[SunSeeker]

15. Did you read the article?

Or are you just reacting to the headline?

[lapfog_1]

4. by the time all is said and done

you will never get an accurate count of related deaths.

hundreds are not out of the question... over 3 million people were living there.

[hedda_foil]

5. OMG, The morgues in shuttered hospitals....

[gopiscrap]

7. this needs to get out more

[Not Ruth]

8. Awful

Are there no neighborhood police/fire around to do health checks on houses? I was 4 floors up from a small fire and the fire department did that almost immediately.

[pnwmom]

9. People are spread out and the gasoline shortages affect police, too. Also, there is no

phone or internet.

The police who do have access to gasoline also have other things to do that take priority over counting dead people -- like helping to keep other people alive.

[Not Ruth]

10. Health checks keep people alive

[pnwmom]

13. Not if there are no medical supplies or functioning hospitals. You don't seem to understand

the scale of the disaster.

For example, from the article -- if he's sent home a "health check" wouldn't help this man:

The fatalities related to circumstances created by the hurricane are still mounting with each passing day, and official numbers are not counting patients who are not receiving dialysis, oxygen and other essential services, such as Pedro Fontánez, 79, who is bedridden at the Pavía Hospital in Santurce and who the institution is attempting to release since Saturday, while he lacks electricity at home to support the oxygen and gastric tube-feeding he needs to continue living. His daughter Nilka Fontánez showed up desperate at the government’s Emergency Operations Center asking for help, but was told they were not accepting patients there.

[Igel]

23. Health checks could help.

But they have to be organized, and for that you need organization.

Imagine the health check you received occurring if

there was no electricity
there was virtually no gasoline
there was precious little interconnectivity, Internet or phone
there was no organization
and the checkers' houses were also trashed and their family members at risk.


It's an island something like 45 x 85 miles with the population of 3.4 million mostly along the shore, but just "mostly." The capital, San Juan, holds 12% of the population and is under 400k. They're spread out. Some of the coastal roads need to be bulldozed to become passable by most vehicles because the road bed was washed out in spots. It's sometimes worse up in the hills.

[elehhhhna]

17. Trump tweeted today that all the buildings have been checked which is horseshit

[MineralMan]

20. Probably not, in the case of a disaster this widespread.

There are small towns and villages in Puerto Rico that really don't have such police and fire departments. Many are cut off from everything still. Clearing roads and reestablishing communications usually begins in heavily populated areas and then spreads out slowly.

I expect a death in the four figures when all are counted.

[Hekate]

11. KnR

[burrowowl]

12. K&R!!!!!!

There has been so little reporting except for POS tweets. The AmericanPress is SHAMEFUL!

[SunSeeker]

14. After reading that article, it appears obvious the dead are in the hundreds, if not over 1,000.

All of the morgues at the operating hospitals are full. They have not even been able to communicate with 51 hospitals.

[Squinch]

16. Can't refrigerate insulin, can't get dialysis, can't oxygenate premies and the elderly...

Yeah. It's going to be big when we finally hear the true number.

I hate to say it, but if someone can compile a legitimate island-wide number of what we know now, it might galvanize the stupids here to send an army of help.

[SunSeeker]

18. Yep. nt

[tblue37]

19. But Geraldo Rivera scoffed at the San Juan mayor, saying "I haven't seen anyone dying." nt

[former9thward]

21. 35,000 people die in PR every year no matter what.

That is almost 100 every day. Not every person who dies has died because of the Hurricane. The article does not draw a difference between the two.

[pnwmom]

24. But the numbers of hurricane deaths will be grossly understated if they include only those

who died on the day of the hurricane and not all those who died of hurricane related problems afterwards -- like no electricity, no dialysis, no oxygen, no medicine, etc.

[malaise]

22. Duh!

We know that