thousands of people died because of the disastrously inadequate failure response. two days after hurricane maria hit puerto rico, i held a press conference in washington, d.c. and i begged the president to rush to send federal assets, to deploy these federal assets. they didn t. i told and i warned him, this is gentleman to become your katrina. indeed, it is his katrina. and let s remind people what the president had to say about his government s response to maria back in okay. take a listen. mr. president, between one and ten you would you grade the white house response to the disaster so far? i d say it was a ten. okay of last year, obviously the death toll tant we didn t know the full number was. now, given the news this official count has been closer to 3,000.