more about deaths in PR

[micky]

Acc to this week's On the Media, the GWU study of deaths in Puerto Rico, which I think is the one discussed that said 3000 deaths, gave similar results to a Harvard U. study, which gave similar results to numbers [finally] reported when CNN interviewed morticians/funeral directors.

No one doubts that there were some who died during that period in manners unrelated to the hurricane; the numbers found have from them substracted the normal number to yield "excess deaths".

And no one here has said that that's not the case, only that some of the deaths during that period were unrelated to the hurricane, and maybe it was more than the studies assume, maybe it was even 500 or 1000 more so that the deaths were only 2000.

But bear in mind that Stumpie is still sticking with the number 12 or

17, the number announced the day that he was in PR.

So whether the actual number is 2000 or 3000, the point is that Stumpie has earned his nickname Dunghead Donnie.

starts about 2 minutes in, though the first 2 minutes are somewhat related.

At least one person from PR says that Trump's statements were good for PR, because they were already prepared to be ignored and Trump brought more attention to the issue, [as he often does, although often taking attention from even more important things,

[rbowman]

Fake news. Trump was okay with the revised number, which was 64 iirc. He probably would have been good with further revisions until someone pulled 3000 out of their ass.

The best thing Trump could do is grant Puerto Rico the independence some factions have been clamoring for. The worst thing anyone could do is to make that failed third world country a full state.

[trader_4]

It wasn't someone and it wasn't pulled out of their ass. That's the typical Trump and trumpet style of ignorant denial, instead of addressing actual l egitimate issues with the study done by George Washington University. They looked at the number of deaths in the 6 months following the hurricane and compared it with the deaths from the prior 8 years. One big problem is tha t they should have given a range of possible deaths, using the min and max deaths of those prior years, instead of a specific number. But whatever the y did, it still would be two orders of magnitude higher than trump's 16 and he would have had the same response.

[devnull]

.

I get it, you're a Trump-hater.  You can blame President Trump for power line failures and the resultant deaths if you like but you're wrong.

Over 90% of storm induced power line failures are caused by tree limbs falling on the lines and snapping them.

If you want a more reliable electric grid and fewer resultant deaths, the cheapest solution is to have all trees removed that are within tipping distance of the lines.

[trader_4]

I don't see anyone here or in the media blaming Trump for power line failures. What I see is:

1 - Trump needlessly re-opening the issue of how many people died as a result of the hurricane in PR. He did it during a routine statement on being prepared for Florence. He couldn't stick to that and started bragging that the response in PR was a great success. The response had been controversial and wasn't really a current topic anymore, until Trump started it up. It's the Trump signature method, start another needless controversy because he insists on bragging about how great he thinks he is. 2 - And then Trump lied:

"Puerto Rico got hit not with one hurricane but with two (hurricanes)," Tru mp said. "And the problem with Puerto Rico is their electric grid and their electric generating plant was dead before the storms ever hit. It was in v ery bad shape. It was in bankruptcy. It had no money. It was largely ? ? you know, it was largely closed."

"And when the storm hit, they had no electricity ? essentially befo re the storm," Trump said. "And when the storm hit, that took it out entire ly."

That's a lie, all customers had power prior to the first hurricane. That hurricane only resulted in loss of power to ten to fifteen percent of customers. It was Maria that knocked it out 100%.

3 - Trump saw fit to tell another lie, that only 16 people died in the hurricane, that the higher numbers that a couple of studies have come up with now are somehow fake and attempts to discredit him. And again, no one blamed Trump for those deaths, they are just trying to determine the full extent of the deaths that are possibly linked to the hurricane. Trump turned that into the usual, a nasty, stupid war with him lying.

None of that had to be, it was again Trump doing stupid, by his own hand. And even if he wanted to say something about the new 3,000 number, there were simple ways of saying something factual, putting it in perspective, without lying. Instead, Trump goes straight to lying, it's all the Democrats, etc. Another example of how unfit he is.

[Terry Coombs]

  I useta be pissed that Entergy has a 60' wide easement thru our property for their power lines . But yanno what ? It's *VERY* rare for the power to go out here because a tree fell on the lines . And most of the run here from town is thru woods as heavy or heavier than ours .

[Mo Power]

Whenever the power company tries to trim trees here, all the whackjob tree-huggers start crying and eventually seem to get their way.  After a half dozen three-day outages, I had a 17kW natural gas generator installed.

[Ed Pawlowski]

We had that here in the past but one bad storm and long outages cured them. Power company now clears at will. Even tree hugger have to charge their phones.

[Terry Coombs]

  Well , if we had natgas out here ... I live over 10 miles from the nearest town (pop under 4k) and it just ain't profitable to run gas lines out here . I have a 8250/5500 watt generator that will run everything but the water heater and keep a supply of fuel on hand . When I find a propane tank I like I may add multi-fuel capability to it ...

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Mon 17 Sep 2018 08:00:50p, Ed Pawlowski told us...

When we lived in Ohio our house was in a heavily wooded area, including the 15 ft. easement between our house and the one behind. However, all the utilities (electric, gas, and major waste tunnels are buried deep down in the easement. The entire community has burried utilities, right up to the houses. Any seldom power outages have been caused by oveerhead lines outside our community.

[gfretwell]

The FPL ROW is 100' wide behind my house but I am OK with it because after you get past here it is surrounded on 3 sides by water and it is a great place to run with my dog. You can really only get there from my yard too. It is a jungle going the other way and I am not helping them keep it clear. OTOH I do a great job going the other way. It is a regular nature walk.

[gfretwell]

FPL gets medieval on trees near the lines here and in spite of horrible weather, the power is pretty solid.