Trump Throws Paper Towels in Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

The Hurricane

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, as a Category 4 storm. It was the worst natural disaster to strike the island in nearly a century. The storm knocked out power to the entire island — all 3.4 million residents lost electricity — destroyed tens of thousands of homes, and obliterated critical infrastructure including water treatment facilities, hospitals, and cell towers. Much of the island would remain without power for months; some areas did not have electricity restored for nearly a year.

The Visit

Two weeks after the hurricane, Trump visited Puerto Rico on October 3. The trip was intended to demonstrate presidential leadership in the face of catastrophe. Instead, it became one of the most infamous photo ops of his presidency. At a relief distribution center at Calvary Chapel in Guaynabo, Trump began tossing rolls of paper towels into the crowd of disaster survivors as though shooting basketball free throws, grinning as he lobbed them over people’s heads.

The image of Trump cheerfully throwing paper towels to Americans who had lost their homes, their power, and in many cases their loved ones became an enduring symbol of his indifference to suffering. During the same visit, Trump praised the federal response as “incredible” and compared Maria favorably to “a real catastrophe like Katrina,” seemingly dismissing the severity of the disaster in Puerto Rico.

The Death Toll Dispute

Initially, the official death toll stood at just 16. Trump cited this number during his visit, telling officials, “You can be very proud — only 16 versus in the thousands” who died in Katrina. But independent researchers would later determine the actual toll was catastrophically higher. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in May 2018 estimated that approximately 4,645 excess deaths occurred in the three months following the hurricane. The government of Puerto Rico ultimately acknowledged a revised estimate of 2,975 deaths.

When the higher death toll was officially acknowledged in August 2018, Trump rejected the findings, tweeting that the number had been inflated by Democrats “in order to make me look as bad as possible.” The claim was baseless — the study had been conducted by researchers at George Washington University at the request of Puerto Rico’s governor.

Legacy

The federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was widely criticized as slow, disorganized, and inadequate compared to responses to disasters on the mainland United States. Billions of dollars in approved relief funds were delayed for years. The episode raised painful questions about whether the federal government treated Puerto Rico — a U.S. territory whose residents are American citizens — as a lesser priority because of the island’s largely Latino population and lack of voting representation in Congress.