--- title: Puerto Rico: Donald Trump Praises Low Reported Death Toll description: President Trump praised officials for the disaster relief effort in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, noting that the death toll was relatively low in comparison... canonical: https://time.com/4967645/donald-trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-katrina/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-03T18:42:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:42:48.625Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Says Hurricane Maria Was Not 'a Real Catastrophe Like Hurricane Katrina' og:description: "Sixteen versus literally thousands of people" og:url: https://time.com/4967645/donald-trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-katrina/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc683b2e75f64f9e/6988e0577cdbacc5a8d5a503/trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Trump, San Juan, Puerto Rico - 03 Oct 2017 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Says Hurricane Maria Was Not 'a Real Catastrophe Like Hurricane Katrina' twitter:description: "Sixteen versus literally thousands of people" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc683b2e75f64f9e/6988e0577cdbacc5a8d5a503/trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Says Hurricane Maria Was Not 'a Real Catastrophe Like Hurricane Katrina' > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Oct 3, 2017 6:42 PM UTC  President Donald Trump greets participants during a briefing on hurricane recovery efforts with first responders at Luis Muniz Air National Guard Base, in San Juan, Puerto Rico Trump, on Oct 3, 2017. President Donald Trump greets participants during a briefing on hurricane recovery efforts with first responders at Luis Muniz Air National Guard Base, in San Juan, Puerto Rico Trump, on Oct 3, 2017. AP/Shutterstock  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Oct 3, 2017 6:42 PM UTC President Trump praised officials for the disaster relief effort in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, noting that the death toll was relatively low in comparison with past events like Hurricane Katrina. “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— and you look at what happened here with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump said during a briefing as part of his visit to the island Tuesday. He turned to Puerto Rico’s Governor, Ricardo Rossello, who was sitting next to him, and asked him to confirm the death toll. When Rossello told him it was 16, Trump was praiseworthy. “You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people, working together,” he said. “Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud. Everyone around this table and everyone watching can really be proud of what’s taken place in Puerto Rico.” But Puerto Rico Public Safety Secretary Héctor Pesquera has pushed back on these figures. He t[old Omaya Sosa Pascual](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article176670706.html), a reporter at the Center for Investigative Journalism, that he believes the number of fatalities has exceeded 16\. It is unlikely, however, that the death toll from Hurricane Maria will surpass that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which led to an estimated 1, 833 deaths, according to[ figures from FEMA](http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/23/us/hurricane-katrina-statistics-fast-facts/index.html) posted by CNN. The President’s visit to Puerto Rico, which is slated to last a little over five hours, comes just days after [he criticized ](http://time.com/4963903/donald-trump-puerto-rican-leaders-want-everything-to-be-done-for-them/)San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz after she asked the U.S. government for more resources. Trump wrote on Twitter that some officials in the U.S. territory want “everything to be done for them,” although he did praise Rossello and Congresswoman Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4967645/donald-trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-katrina/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4967645/donald-trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-katrina/"},"headline":"President Trump Says Hurricane Maria Was Not 'a Real Catastrophe Like Hurricane Katrina'","datePublished":"2017-10-03T18:42:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:42:48.625Z","description":"President Trump praised officials for the disaster relief effort in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, noting that the death toll was relatively low in comparison...","url":"https://time.com/4967645/donald-trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-katrina/","keywords":["Puerto Rico","Donald Trump","onetime","Hurricane Maria"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc683b2e75f64f9e/6988e0577cdbacc5a8d5a503/trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc683b2e75f64f9e/6988e0577cdbacc5a8d5a503/trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-09.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Trump, San Juan, Puerto Rico - 03 Oct 2017","caption":"Trump, San Juan, Puerto Rico - 03 Oct 2017","creditText":"AP/Shutterstock","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/puerto-rico/","name":"Puerto Rico"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4967645/donald-trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-katrina/","name":"President Trump Says Hurricane Maria Was Not 'a Real Catastrophe Like Hurricane Katrina'"}}]}] ```