美国国家公共电台 NPR Hurricane Maria Caused 2,975 Deaths In Puerto Rico, Independent Study Estimates

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five - that's the estimated number of people who died because of Hurricane Maria in the first six months after the storm struck Puerto Rico. This new death toll¹ was released today, nearly a year after the storm. It comes from a new independent study commissioned by Puerto Rico's government. NPR's Adrian Florido has been following this story for months and joins us now. Hi, Adrian.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE²: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: There have been a lot of different estimates of how many people died. What makes this new one significant?

FLORIDO: Well, this is a study that was commissioned by Puerto Rico's own government. If you remember shortly after the storm, the government started getting a lot of criticism for not taking its death count seriously - beginning with that famous visit from President Trump³, when he touted⁴ that there'd only been 16 deaths certified⁵. Puerto Rico's government stopped counting at 64. And a lot of media outlets⁶ and other researchers started trying to arrive at their own numbers. And so this issue kept getting more and more controversial. And finally in February, Puerto Rico's Governor Ricardo Rossello announced that he would ask researchers from George Washington University to start looking into it and arrive at their own number. And that's when they started working on this study that they released today.

SHAPIRO: To jump from 16 to 64 to nearly 3,000 is really striking, how did researchers get to this new number?

FLORIDO: Well, they analyzed⁷ government data. They reviewed death certificates and the government's death registry for that six-month period after the storm. And then using statistical⁸ modeling, they compared that six-month period to previous six-month periods in previous years. And while many more people obviously died in the six months after the hurricane, that number 2,975 is the number that they say - they estimate died because of the storm.

SHAPIRO: And what does this research say about the groups of people who are most affected⁹ by the hurricane?

FLORIDO: Well, researchers found that every part of the island was affected. But the people who were most affected were old people and poor people. What is still not clear to researchers is which of those nearly 3,000 deaths were caused directly by the storm - so for example, someone drowning, or a tree falling or an accident - and which were indirect deaths - so for example, a diabetic person whose insulin might have gone bad because the power was out - right? -and then died as a result of the complications. And the researchers hope to get those answers - those more granular details in a second phase of the study that they hope to start soon.

SHAPIRO: Adrian, you've been living in Puerto Rico for most of the last year reporting on the aftermath of the hurricane. Explain how the government there got these initial numbers just so very wrong.

FLORIDO: Well, it's just very clear that they mishandled this at many steps in the process in the death count. And that's one of the things that this report found - that many officials, for example, on the island who are responsible for recording¹⁰ deaths and issuing death certificates, had not even been properly informed on how to report disaster-related deaths. And so it was hard to come up with a tally¹¹. The study also said that the government had done a poor job of communicating with the public about the death count. And that ended up actually causing a lot of confusion. So the researchers made a number of recommendations in their report aimed at improving the government's response in the future.

SHAPIRO: What has the reaction today been from Puerto Rico's governor?

FLORIDO: So he spoke¹² earlier today at the governor's mansion¹³ in San Juan and acknowledged that his government had made mistakes in its handling of the death count. And he also significantly said that he is going to adopt this new number 2,975 as the government's official death toll estimate for Hurricane Maria. On top of that, he said that he was going to create a commission to review the report's recommendations and to work to execute them. And then finally, Ari, the governor said that he had begun speaking to architects at the University of Puerto Rico to design a memorial for the hurricane dead, which is something that a lot of people on the island have wanted because they've said that not even having a number and not even knowing how many people had died from the storm had made it really hard to fully¹⁴ grieve them and remember them.

SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks, Adrian.

FLORIDO: Thank you, Ari.

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1 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

4 touted   

v.兜售( tout的过去式和过去分词 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报

参考例句：

• She's being touted as the next leader of the party. 她被吹捧为该党的下一任领导人。
• People said that he touted for his mother and sister. 据说，他给母亲和姐姐拉生意。 来自辞典例句

5 certified   

a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的

参考例句：

• Doctors certified him as insane. 医生证明他精神失常。
• The planes were certified airworthy. 飞机被证明适于航行。

6 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

11 tally   

n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致

参考例句：

• Don't forget to keep a careful tally of what you spend.别忘了仔细记下你的开支账目。
• The facts mentioned in the report tally to every detail.报告中所提到的事实都丝毫不差。

12 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

13 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

14 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。