I always thought the death toll would have been higher.
But just assumed it was luck on SXM.


In February 2018, CNN and Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism filed three lawsuits against the Government of Puerto Rico to obtain details on deaths in the months following Maria. Following a court ruling, the government released the withheld information. Statistical data showed an increase of 1,427 deaths in 2017 as compared to the preceding four years; however, the number attributable to Maria could not be determined. On August 28, the Government of Puerto Rico revised the official death toll to be 2,975 people, ranking Maria as one of the deadliest hurricanes in United States history. The official estimate is based on a study commissioned by the governor of Puerto Rico,[2] where researchers at George Washington University developed statistical models showing the number of excess deaths for the time period between September 2017 and February 2018 to be between 2,658–3,290 (with a 95 percent confidence interval).[3] Researchers attribute the discrepancy with the initially reported death count to "lack of awareness of appropriate death certification practices after a natural disaster" among physicians reporting deaths to vital statistic agencies. From Wikipedia