Hurricane Maria Did Not Kill 3,000 Puerto Ricans: The Flaw in the Milken/GWU Report

Abstract

The "official" report alleging that Hurricane Maria caused the deaths of 2,975 Puerto Ricans is flawed. The primary flaw is the implicit assumption that the mortality rate of those who left the island and those who stayed on the island was the same. This assumption is not warranted or supported. We provide a numerical example to illustrate this error. With this error removed, the report’s own Figure 1 shows that the death toll due to Hurricane Maria was minimal.

Keywords: Puerto Rico, Probability, Logic, Flaw, Mistake, Storm