The Daily - Friday, Feb. 9, 2018

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico with great fury, but the government there said that just 64 people had been killed by the storm. The hundreds of bodies showing up at morgues across the island told a different story. Guests: Frances Robles, a New York Times correspondent based in Miami; Mili Bonilla, whose father died in Puerto Rico in October. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico's government announced that just 64 people had been killed by the storm. But the hundreds of bodies showing up at morgues across the island tell a different story. It's Friday, February 9th.

Mili. Mili. But it's not Mili, it's Mili. Mili. Mili. Mili. Okay. So my name is Mili Bonilla.

I live in the Bronx in a borough of New York City. My family lives in Puerto Rico in the metropolitan area in a place called Tuabaja near San Juan, in the San Juan area. Can you tell me a bit about your father? Sure. So my father, Jose Bonilla Rios, everyone known him as Pepe. Pepe. In the late 50s and 60s, the job situation was very dire on the island. And so many folks were saying, New York has factories, has jobs, you know, go to New York, make a living there. And so that was the biggest migration period of Puerto Ricans

coming to New York City. And he came then. And he came then. I call him a very maternal man. He actually negotiated with my mother when they were to be divorced to say that no matter what, I want to raise my daughter. That was an interesting thing for a man to say, I want to be the primary caretaker. That was the person he was, very gentle. How old were you when that happened? I was around like two and a half years old. And did he succeed in becoming the primary caretaker? He did become the primary caretaker. Later on, he went back to Puerto Rico.

And did you go back to Puerto Rico with him? No, I didn't go. I was to finish school, which was a big deal for the family. And so we just visited every summer. Do you have any pictures of him? Yeah, I do. Can you show me them? Mm-hmm. So one

I keep on my... On the home screen. On my home screen. That's him. Mm-hmm. He On my home screen. That's him. He's handsome. Yeah, that's what everyone says. With light blue eyes, kind of wavy hair, very slim, very gentle, very much dressed in his guayabera, which is the, you know, very elegant dress for men in the island. It's a kind of a double pocketed... Yeah, that's what you wear.

Where were you, Millie, when you first heard about Hurricane Maria? And what was your reaction to the news that it was headed for Puerto Rico? So I was here in New York City. We were having communication with family members about how they were going to prepare. People were ready. You know, there'd been hurricanes before. It's an island in that part of the world. Yeah, you expected everything was fine. You know, I had no worries at all. But we never expected it. It was going to be what happened.

September 20th came. The storm hits early. Then I tried to, you know, after 24 hours, tried to call. Of course, all internet service was down. All cell service was down. You know, so you're like anxiously waiting. It's like, oh my goodness, what's happening? Was there any flooding? Later on, I was told that the area of Levittown in Tlalaha was flooded. Where your father lives.

Where my father lives. When there was no more rain, then the devastation was seen. That's where then he was having breathing problems. My father began complaining about respiratory issues. I can't breathe. My cousins were the ones who were saying, Tio, you know, we've got to take you to the hospital. You've got to go to a hospital so we can see what the issue is. So by the 22nd, two days later, he's taken to the hospital. That's where he was given oxygen to help him breathe. And of course, you know, the first indications I get from my cousins is the issues of pneumonia and water in the lungs. So there's a diagnosis.

There's a diagnosis. That hospital at some point lost its source of oxygen. That's a really scary thing to happen. It's really scary because you're also thinking if they have no more oxygen, what else have they run out of? And so, you know, you have no access to that information. So when this hospital says that it's out of oxygen and tells your father, what happens to him? So once the hospital says, you know, we have to transfer you to another hospital that's lack of oxygen, transfer you to another hospital that's lack of oxygen.

The hospital itself has an ambulance and picks him up, puts him there and transfers him. Okay. So he's admitted to that hospital. We're in hospital number two. The doctor also suggested to my father that you should leave for the United States. When I heard that, it's like, wow. What did that tell you?

That surprised me. Like, folks, get out as much as you can because we can't do much here on this island right now. Also, Puerto Rico is the United States. Puerto Rico is the colony of the United States for 117 years. And at this point, where are you? I'm still in New York City. I'm trying to figure out how to get to Puerto Rico.

The first two weeks of the hurricane was hard. I looked up an airline and all of October was booked. But I finally found something. I left for Puerto Rico on October 19th. So almost a month after. And as you were flying in, I imagine Puerto Rico has a familiar appearance from the sky, if you've been there many times before. What did it look like on this flight? I mean, you were just happy to see it, to see that the island was still there. Although, you know, once you landed and once I saw, you know, it was very devastating. Do you have some of the photos of what you saw when you got on the ground?

Do you mind showing me a few? Let me see. So I took this. Let's see. These are palm trees that were, you know, torn off the ground. People's belongings. Oh, on the side of the road. On the side of roads. Mattresses, sofas, boxes, pictures.

That roadside that's just full of people's belongings, those have been destroyed in the flood. Destroyed by the flood? This is the lettering of the hospital where my father was staying. You can't even tell what it says. I assume that's one of the first things you saw when you went to the hospital? Yes. Was it half the letters were missing on the sign?

Half the letters were missing on the sign. What was the first thing that you said to your father things you saw when you went to the hospital? Yes. Was that half the letters were missing on the sign? Yes, half the letters were missing on the sign. What was the first thing that you said to your father when you saw him? Oh, hola. Papi, estoy aqui. You know, I'm here. And here I brought you the daily news. But I was so happy to see him. He was sitting up, you know, his light blue eyes shining, you know.

He looked fine. And the next day, we're there early and ready to see him. And they let us in. They don't tell us anything. And here's my father is on a ventilator. And then all of a sudden, everything was going down. Multiple organ failure. Weak heart.

But at that point, the hospital, the doctors, we can't do anything else. It's not going to be good. You know, he's not going to survive this. So by the end of October, my father passed away. What do you think is ultimately Millie responsible for your father's death? I believe that my father's death was indirectly affected by the hurricane. So the official course of death was septic shock, sepsis, which is bacteria.

My father and many others, those who couldn't make it to the hospital, those who couldn't get their insulin, others like my father who was able to be in a hospital, but maybe all the resources weren't there. His death is an indirect hit of Hurricane Maria. Do I have proof that things could have been different? No. But I believe that if this had happened and there was no hurricane,

I would be, you know, celebrating with him today. But, you know, that's not the case now. It's not the case for me and it's not the case for my friend whose husband died and it's not the case

for lots of others. I'm just one story, right? Of so many, many stories. After the break, a Times investigation puts a number to just how many stories. We'll be right back.

Well, thank you very much. It was a great trip and a beautiful place. I've been to Puerto Rico many times. President Trump arrived in Puerto Rico on October 3rd, which was almost two weeks after Hurricane Maria had hit. Francis Robles has been investigating the death count in Puerto Rico. 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. He and Governor Rosselló had an exchange about the death toll. What is your death count as of this moment, 17? 16 certified. 16 people certified. Trump really remarked on how fantastic it was that only 16 people had died. You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. 16 versus literally thousands of people.

They were really thrilled. And so it was actually kind of ironic because hours after he left, the death toll doubled. The hurricane death toll, meanwhile, more than doubled. It more than doubled to 34. Puerto Rico's governor told me the rising toll includes drownings and deaths from mudslides that had not been reported previously. And so you started to get a sense that things were not as they seemed. Different states count the dead differently. And it's a little controversial in the sense of whether you count a direct death or an indirect death. So you have your immediate number. How many people drowned? How many people had a tree come crashing through their house and land on their head?

That's direct. Those are not debatable. They are what they are. And maybe you don't know the first day, but within the first few days, they should generally have their head wrapped around that. few days, they should generally have their head wrapped around that. Then it gets much murkier. Then you have people who died waiting for ambulances. Then you have people who the power went out in their house and they're elderly and their temperature shot up or they got pneumonia. Their machines that they used to breathe couldn't be powered. Some people committed suicide. So now do you count those deaths? Those are indirect. And so now here's the thing, couldn't be powered. Some people committed suicide. So now, do you count those deaths? Those are indirect.

And so now here's the thing. Puerto Rico officially does count those deaths. So that's why there's this huge disconnect between what they say they're going to do and the numbers that they actually have come up with. There's a question that I can't answer. But I can translate it. I can translate it. No, you can't. that they actually have come up with. It did not take long for us to start noticing that something was really wrong. Just a few days after the hurricane,

I went to a lot of hospitals and I met people just, you know, in the parking lot outside. And I met really desperate people who had gone to five or six different hospitals before they could find one that was open that was accepting patients. I met a man who was getting dialysis, and he said that because the place was operating on generator power, they were kind of rationing out the dialysis hours. And he saw people drop dead right in front of him at the dialysis center.

I met a family that the father died of pneumonia because the machine that he uses to breathe required electricity. I can't explain what is true, the impotence. There was rumors going around of this one hospital in the south, in Ponce, where several children had died in the intensive care. I became a little obsessed with that ICU, and I went on this mission to find the parents of the babies that were in that unit. And I found two of them. I found one, she said, he couldn't breathe. You know, you could smell the mold in the air in a hospital without air conditioning. How are you going to tell me that

babies in intensive care are supposed to be in a hospital for over a month without air conditioning? And then the baby next to her baby also died. So I found that child's parents, and they said the same. There's no one that's going to convince them that if the hurricane hadn't passed, their babies wouldn't have survived. Those are just two examples, you know, little Nathan and Isaias, I bet those children's names are never going to be on any list. But their families will never accept those deaths as not having been related to the hurricane and an ultimate failure by the hospitals, by the government to take care of the neediest and the weakest. neediest and the weakest. So what you're seeing, Frenchie, is growing evidence of deaths indirectly resulting from Hurricane Maria. So many deaths. They start to dwarf this official figure from the government, which is still, you know, in the low 30s. And these indirect deaths should be

counted by the government, but it's clear that they're not being counted. That's right. So the government claims that it counts indirect deaths. Yet, as the evidence started piling up, they were really in denial. Okay. See. Okay. Go say it. Morning. So in early November, they decide to have a press conference where they're, in their minds, finally going to put to bed the issue of how many people died in the weeks after the hurricane. So we gather for this news conference, and it was really extraordinary. There's this long line of officials, including Hector Pesquera, who is the Secretary of Public Safety in Puerto Rico, and he was the incident commander for the hurricane.

And so they get up there and they basically say, they confirm that 477 people died in September 2017 over September 2016, which represented about a 20% increase. That's a lot. Yet, the number of deaths certified as being related to the hurricane was still in the 50s, that this huge surge of deaths was essentially a coincidence, that it was natural deaths. Hector Pesquera basically said people die in the months that they die. Normally, they had about 83 deaths a day in Puerto Rico.

That's their normal average, 82. And then on September 20th, the day of the hurricane, it jumps to 117 a day. I was like, well, hold on a second. How can you suddenly have that many more deaths a day and you think this is just a coincidence? And he said, well, the doctors have no reason to lie. And so this press conference goes on and I start just kind of unraveling.

I'm flapping my arms around and nobody's taking my question. Finally, I kind of just started losing my patience, to be honest. Mr. Pesquera, from a public safety perspective, isn't it important? You said, oh, should we have to investigate 29,000 cases? Well, no. But what about these 500? Don't you think that there should be some kind of moral responsibility by the government to make sure that the nursing homes and the hospitals have adequate facilities to handle a blackout? And what was his answer? He said, why would there be an investigation?

So, like, let's say the case in Hollywood where eight people died in one day. Were there any trends like that? Were you so, oh, hey, this... Yeah. Oh, Hollywood, Florida, it's a different environment. Hollywood, Florida was the lack of electricity. We don't have that situation. Right, I'm just saying, did you see any trends?

Like, one particular hospital where there was a lot, or one, you know... No, no, we don't. No, we don't have that situation. Right. I'm just saying, did you see any trends? Like one particular hospital where there was a lot or one, you know? No, we don't. So, I mean, it seems like because there was no 911 system, then everybody gets a pass for whatever may have happened. No, no. The family members. Okay. All right. I was really upset. really upset. I felt really strongly that if the government was not going to look deeply at these numbers, that we were going to. That we were going to answer the question of how many people died in Puerto Rico. So I spent the next, I guess, two or three weeks badgering the Department of Health in Puerto Rico and the governor's office and the Secretary of

Public Safety for more statistics. And they would give me like a little bit of statistics and then I would want more. And then I would say, no, no, no, this isn't good enough, but I want this for October. I want this for September and October. I want to see it by city. I want to see it by cause of death. I think that was really driving them crazy. But when the numbers came in, it was stunning. You know, when you had to look at the charts and your jaw just dropped. And then it was like, wow, how could these government officials be looking at these same numbers, which I got from them, and not be determined to find out how people died as a result of that hurricane and how they can prevent it next time. So what exactly are you finding in these numbers that the government has given you? So what we did was we compared the 2017 number of deaths to 2016 and 2015. So just in case 2016 was a fluke, we went back an extra year.

And what we found was that in the first 42 days after the hurricane, 1,052 people, additional people had died in Puerto Rico. There had been a 50% increase in the number of people who died of sepsis. There had been a surge of deaths in nursing homes. And the highest cause of death was diabetes. There was a big jump in diabetes deaths. And that number of more than a thousand, how does that compare with what at this point is still the official government death count? The official government death count is still 64. So what happens after you make public this reporting that you're doing, that more than 1,000 deaths are clearly the result, whether it's direct or indirect, of the storm. What is

the reaction from this government that has been so reluctant to grapple with the question of the real death count? It was really fascinating because a lot of different media outlets had already been picking at this issue. But there was something about our story that because it was using the government's own statistics that really changed the narrative in Puerto Rico, where the government suddenly starts saying, well, OK, I guess maybe maybe there's some uncounted deaths. This morning, Puerto Rico's governor is ordering an official recount of the death toll related to Hurricane Maria. That toll currently stands at 64. but this is an important development today. This week, the New York Times and other outlets published statistics from the Puerto Rican government that show the death toll may be more than a thousand.

Really a change of tone, not just a development. Hearing the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, saying, look, we acknowledge that there is a need for investigation. We acknowledge that the number could be higher. And so a few weeks after our story came out, the governor announced that he was ordering a review of every natural death that occurred after the hurricane to determine where there were other factors such as waiting for an ambulance or a lack of oxygen that was related to the hurricane. Now, who is in charge of that review?

Hector Pesquera, the Secretary of Public Safety, who said, why would we review these deaths? Frenchy, I'm a little confused about why the Puerto Rican government is being so resistant to this line of questioning and to this overall inquiry into how many people have actually died. The territory has just been ravaged by a horrible hurricane. It doesn't seem to have the resources that it needs to recover from it. cover from it. Wouldn't Puerto Rico want to show the world just how bad the storm had been and the scale of aid it needs at this moment? And wouldn't being candid about the death count serve both of those purposes? I've thought about this a lot. You know, my editor asked me probably a hundred times, he said, well, wouldn't they want to exaggerate the number of deaths so that they get more federal funding? I think it boils down to two things. First of all, you know,

how good is it for you politically if you look like you were presiding over a unmitigated disaster that you could not control? I mean, nobody wants that to be their legacy, number one. Number two, and I think probably the more important reason and a little bit more of the cynical reason, everything in Puerto Rico politically boils down to whether you're for statehood or against statehood. Because it's a territory, not a state. Because it's a territory,

it's a property of the United States and not an actual state. And so the government that's in power right now, they're the new progressive party and they're pro-statehood. So they're all about becoming the 51st state. So I don't think they believe that it behooves their mission to become the 51st state if President Trump comes to Puerto Rico and sees some cesspool that can't keep control over its natural disasters where hundreds of people are dying. I mean, that's not a good image to join the union. And in Puerto Rico, it always boils down to that issue.

Even a hurricane. Even a hurricane. Frenchie, thank you very much for your reporting. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Michael. There might be people who listen to this and say, well, Millie, of course it's horrible your father died, but why does it matter so much if he's counted, if he's not counted officially by the government? Yeah, you know, I think I'm on this because first the government denied a lot of the numbers, of course, denied the number of deaths, denied that we really were devastated. So it's this moment of denial, and it has to stop.

And, you know, people lost their lives. There are many indirect effects of the hurricane. And my father and everyone else's father or grandfather or mother or uncle or aunt or sister or brother, those deaths, to respect their lives, have to be documented as hurricane affected. Emily, thank you very much. Thank you. Here's what else you need to know today. If you were against President Obama's trillion dollar debts, trillion dollar deficits, why are you for trillion dollar deficits when you just simply put a Republican name on it?

And I think people are going to see through this. The federal government once again shut down early Friday morning after Congress, operating on the latest short term spending bill, missed the deadline to pass a new budget. a single Republican senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, who delayed a vote on a sweeping spending agreement negotiated by leaders of both parties because it would add to the nation's deficit. And I really don't. My intention has never been to shut down government. But my intention is also not to keep it open and borrowing a million dollars a minute. My intention is not to vote for bills that say, oh, it's just keeping it open, but bills that actually spend so much money that I think they endanger our security.

But by 5.30 a.m., both the Senate and the House had voted to pass the bipartisan spending deal by a wide margin, ending the shutdown. And... The Dow nosediving again today in what's been an incredibly volatile week. Here are the major averages, and indeed they are trading at the lows of the session. Big losses. The Dow now down over a thousand points. U.S. markets closed just seconds ago and stocks plunged again today. Everybody looking at the lows we hit earlier in this week saw us go back through them and didn't like what they saw.

This has been a rollercoaster week and more selling could be ahead. On Thursday, the stock market dropped sharply for the second time in less than a week, as investors grow increasingly certain that the Federal Reserve Bank will raise interest rates, making it more expensive to borrow money. The stock market has now declined so much that it has entered what economists call a correction, a drop of 10% or more. The Daily is produced by Theo Balcom, Lindsay Garrison, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Andy Mills, Ike Sreeskanarajah, Claire Tennis-Sketter, Paige Cowett, and Michael Simon-Johnson, with editing help from Larissa Anderson. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer. Samantha Hennig is our editorial director.

Our technical manager is Brad Fisher, and our sound engineer is Peter Sale. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick and Michaela Bouchard. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you Monday.