Donald Trump’s response to Hurricane Florence will be closely watched after angry tweets about Puerto Rico death toll
The politics of natural disasters can be tricky for a US president
Even before Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina, US President Donald Trump was kicking up a storm of controversy.
Discounting an academic study produced by George Washington University and accepted by the island territory’s local government, Trump tweeted that the number had arisen “like magic”.
The barrage of angry tweets guarantees that his handling of the current storm, which is still battering North and South Carolina, will be under the microscope.
Eleven people had been reported dead by Saturday evening, and hundreds needed to be rescued from flooded homes.
Hurricanes have been political minefields for presidents in the past, most notably President George W. Bush. He was excoriated over his administration’s poor handling of Hurricane Katrina, which killed between 1,000 and 1,800 people in 2005.
Bush’s delay in visiting New Orleans was fiercely criticised – he was infamously photographed looking down on the city from a window on Air Force One.