Governor Rosselló establishes working group to revise the number of deaths related to Hurricane Maria

(January 4, 2018 – La Fortaleza, San Juan) The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, signed an executive order to establish a working group to revise the number of deaths related to Hurricane Maria.

“As part of the recovery process, it is important to guarantee transparency in the damages caused to the life and safety of our citizens,” expressed the governor.

Likewise, Rosselló added that “the Government will carry out all the measures it believes are necessary to procure the highest level of transparency in the recovery of our Island, as well as in the damages to the life of our citizens caused by this atmospheric event.”

As was established by Executive Order 2018-001, the secretary of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), Héctor Pesquera—in coordination with the Demographic Registry and the Bureau of Forensic Sciences—is ordered to establish a procedure to revise the deaths that occurred after Hurricane Maria in order to determine if they were related or not to the passage of the atmospheric event through the Island.

The secretary of the DPS will establish a procedure aimed at revising the cause of the deaths that occurred after the passage of the hurricane and in a 90-day term will present a report of the findings of said procedure.

“The 19th and 20th of September of 2017, Hurricane Maria made its way through Puerto Rico, becoming the most devastating atmospheric event of the past 80 years for the local infrastructure as well as for the supply of the essential services to the public,” the executive order states.

Additionally, the order mandates every agency of the executive branch to cooperate and provide the secretary of the DPS with all available resources to meet its objectives.