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CNNHealth: We surveyed 112 Puerto Rican funeral homes to check the accuracy of the hurricane death toll. This is what we found.
john d. sutter
Feb 14, 2019
Video by McKenna Ewen and John D. Sutter, CNN
Updated 6:28 PM ET, Mon November 20, 2017
Cayey, Puerto Rico (CNN)People on this part of the island knew Quintín Vidal Rolón for two things: his white cowboy hat, which he seemed to wear every day of his 89-year life; and his beat-up Ford pickup truck, which he'd been driving for at least 50 years.
It was in that 1962 truck and wearing that hat, that Vidal spent his days zipping around the mountainous back roads of Cayey, Puerto Rico. He sold hardware from the wooden bed of the pickup. And he used those tools, and a lifetime of sweat, to build houses -- always in concrete. Like him, the material was nothing if not consistent. It was strong enough to stand up to a storm, he told clients and family members. Don't trust anything less durable.
After Hurricane Maria slammed into this US territory on September 20, peeling roofs from wooden homes and amputating branches from trees, the community turned again to Vidal. No one can say exactly how many people survived the storm in the hard-cast structures he helped construct for them, often at little or no cost. But it's likely hundreds, his family said.
Puerto Rico's uncounted hurricane deaths
We surveyed 112 Puerto Rican funeral homes to check the accuracy of the official hurricane death toll. This is what we found.
2,476
