Sohn: What Trump storm over hurricanes shows us

This year-after photo of San Juan, Puerto Rico, illustrates that thousands of people across the island are still living in damaged homes, protected by blue plastic tarps, after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. (AP Photo/Dennis M. Rivera)
This year-after photo of San Juan, Puerto Rico, illustrates that thousands of people across the island are still living in damaged homes, protected by blue plastic tarps, after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. (AP Photo/Dennis M. Rivera)

It truly takes a small, sad man to be Donald Trump.

He's so small that he trolls himself.

"3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico," our pathetic president asserted on Twitter as Hurricane Florence zeroed in on the Carolinas last week. "When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000."

Then our fearful leader dialed it up: "... This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!"

Really, Trumpie, why not just blame Hurricane Florence - actually, all hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and wildfires - on the Democrats, too?

That would make as much sense as being angry that America wants and expects a full accounting of what happens to our communities and neighbors whenever and wherever tragedy strikes.

A recent independent study by researchers at George Washington University - commissioned by the Puerto Rico government with the initial blessing of the Trump administration - found that 2,975 more deaths than expected occurred in the aftermath of the storm as the island had no power, almost no potable water and zero government leadership and coordination for weeks and months on end. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report acknowledges that FEMA struggled to meet the needs of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after they were lashed by 2017 hurricanes.

And, by the way, 64 deaths - not 6 to 18 - were initially reported in the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico.

Aside from his comments' huge disrespect for Puerto Rican families and their dead - all American citizens - the president's musings are yet another indicator of his warped personality.

But put that aside for a moment and take his statements for their literal meaning. By Trump's illogical thinking, if individuals didn't die while the hurricane thrashed, they don't count. Tell that to the hundreds turned away from Puerto Rican hospitals that had no power or water for weeks on end.

And by this thinking, if a building falls two days after a storm surge weakened its foundation, it wasn't actually destroyed by the hurricane and therefore shouldn't count for FEMA help or insurance, right? That would certainly offer a cheap way out for the government and corporate insurers.

Scott Gabriel Knowles, a history professor at Drexel University and an affiliate of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, studies public policy concerning risk and disaster. On Thursday, he penned an op-ed for The New York Times about the short-sightedness of "the president's failure of imagination."

"The president's disaster logic tells us that firefighters who are now sick after responding to the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks are not victims, and that soldiers suffering PTSD should not to be counted among the casualties of war. Nothing matters unless it happened in the event. If you didn't die then and there, you don't count."

As a society, if we buy that thinking we also don't learn much. We don't learn that long-term thinking and planning can save lives and dollars.

"Event thinking is cheaper, and it relieves us of the moral burdens of protecting the commons," Knowles wrote. "But it is counterproductive. What we should be doing is building a culture of long-term preparedness, based in scientific reality."

It's not enough to be able to forecast the hurricane. We must understand the full potential for aftermath flooding and systems failures, as well.

All too often, with too-little preparedness and too-little response coordination afterward, disasters unfold painfully slowly. The tragedy isn't the first domino that falls, but the collapse of the whole row. If we ignore that, we can't fortify the canals that flooded New Orleans after Katrina had passed on through.

The report on Puerto Rico that puts the real death toll at nearly 3,000 is the result of just such a slow-motion domino collapse.

The trouble with Trump is not just that he's an unfeeling lout and a liar. The root problem is that he does not - apparently cannot - think.

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