Economy
Thousands of Shoes Honor Hurricane Maria’s Victims in San Juan
In San Juan, an improvised memorial has become the focal point for grief and anger after the publication of a new, much higher estimated death count.
SAN JUAN—Walking the rows of shoes—favorite slippers, old Army boots, gold stilettos—it’s the baby shoes that stop you cold.
Last Friday, shoes began to fill a plaza opposite Puerto Rico’s Capitol building, and by Sunday morning, there were more than 3,000 pairs, a growing memorial to the roughly 4,645 people estimated to have died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. That estimate, published last week in a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, dwarfs the official death toll of 64. (The figure 4,645 is the statistical midpoint of the researchers’ range, from almost 800 to close to 8,500 people.)