Donald Trump slams Puerto Rico’s hurricane response: ‘Katrina’ the real deal

US President Donald Trump has been slammed after comparing the death count in Puerto Rico to a “real catastrophe” like Hurricane Katrina.

DONALD Trump has told Puerto Rico Hurricane Katrina was a real catastrophe while criticising the island territory for its handling of its own deadly storm disaster.

Touring a small slice of Hurricane Maria’s devastation, the US President congratulated Puerto Rico for escaping the higher death toll of “a real catastrophe like Katrina”.

He also heaped praise on the relief efforts of his own administration without mentioning the sharp criticism the federal response has drawn.

“Really nothing short of a miracle,” he said of the recovery.

His assessment is at odds with the despair many have been left facing after the Category 5 storm smashed the island last month.

Many are still struggling to find water and food outside the capital city in wide swathes of an island where only five per cent of electricity customers have power back.

Mr Trump pledged an all-out effort to help the island while adding, somewhat lightly: “Now I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico. And that’s fine. We’ve saved a lot of lives.”

US President Donald Trump’s helicopter, Marine One (left), flies over Puerto Rico, with many parts of the island remaining without access to power or drinking water. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

The island’s governor revealed 34 people have died in the disaster but authorities warn that could rise as people suffer secondary effects from thirst, hunger and extreme heat without air-conditioning.

As many as 1800 people died in 2005 when levees protecting New Orleans broke following Hurricane Katrina.

Mr Trump’s comparison didn’t go unnoticed with many questioning how one single death in either storm isn’t a tragedy.

This is such a deeply wrong, deeply inappropriate, deeply disrespectful thing to say....that I hardly know where to start. 2/

— Jeremy Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) October 3, 2017

Here's Trump comparing the death count in Puerto Rico to the death count in a "real catastrophe like Katrina" pic.twitter.com/lNCz4wYvMn

— Tasneem N (@TasneemN) October 3, 2017

Trump blamed Puerto Rico for messing up the U.S. budget and said at least it's not "a real catastrophe like Katrina." pic.twitter.com/zJyUzAIC8x

— Adrienne Mahsa (@AdrienneMahsa) October 3, 2017

Trump at his embarrassing presser this morning, said that Puerto Rico's hurricane wasn't a "real catastrophe" like Katrina was! Wtf!

— Marcia Juell (@marciajuell) October 4, 2017

We are appalled that Trump would visit PR to insult officials, implying the storm wasn't as devastating as Katrina #PuertoRico

— Omar Vaid (@omarvaid) October 3, 2017

The visit offered fresh evidence of the unconventional path Mr Trump has taken in responding to the one-two-three punch from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

His effusive praise for federal relief efforts has overshadowed his displays of empathy for those who are suffering.

And in Puerto Rico, in particular, his criticism of local people for not doing more to help themselves has struck an off note during a time of crisis.

Mr Trump said his visit was “not about me” but then praised local officials for offering kind words about his administration’s recovery effort and invited one to repeat the “nice things” she’d said earlier.

Mr Trump also singled out Governor Ricardo Rossello for “giving us the highest praise.”

“Every death is a horror,” he said, “But if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous, hundreds of and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody has ever seen anything like this.”

Air Force One brought the president, first lady Melania Trump and aides to Puerto Rico for a tour stretching through the afternoon.

Mr Trump visited with selected families waiting on their laws on a street lined with debris, including tree limbs and corrugated metal siding.

Mr Trump posed for photos, asked the residents what it was like during the storm and pledged his assistance.

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tour a storm damaged residential area in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

“Thank you for being here, it’s so good to see you,” one man said in Spanish. Up the road in the upscale Guaynabo neighbourhood, one of the fastest to recover, around 200 people cheered Trump’s visit to a local church being used to distribute supplies.

Many crowded around him for phone photos as he handed out flashlights and tossed rolls of paper towels into the friendly crowd. “There’s a lot of love in this room, a lot of love,” Mr Trump said.

“Great people.” Asked by the AP what he has to say to people still without power, food and water, he spoke of the generators brought to the island and said the electrical grid is being fixed.

“Again, the job that’s been done here is really nothing short of a miracle,” he said.

The trip is Mr Trump’s fourth to areas battered by storms during an unusually violent hurricane season that has also seen parts of Texas, Florida, Louisiana and the US Virgin Islands inundated by floodwaters and hit by high winds.

Mr Trump’s visit follows a weekend in which he had aggressively pushed back against critics, including San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz.

He had responded angrily on Twitter, deriding the “poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.”

“They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,” he added, scoffing at “politically motivated ingrates” who had criticised the federal work, and insisting that “tremendous progress” was being made.

Ms Cruz had begged the administration to “make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives” and said federal inefficiency was killing people.