Politics

How the Pentagon Spun Hurricane Maria

U.S. officials inadvertently included a Bloomberg reporter on an internal email list. Here’s a glimpse into their bid to put relief efforts in a positive light.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 1st Special Forces Command organize food and water deliveries for residents of Utuado, Puerto Rico, on Oct 5. — Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 1st Special Forces Command organize food and water deliveries for residents of Utuado, Puerto Rico, on Oct 5.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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By Christopher Flavelle

October 13, 2017 at 10:30 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the October 16, 2017 issue of businessweek.

Late last month, Pentagon communications officials inadvertently included Bloomberg climate reporter Christopher Flavelle on an internal distribution list, in which Defense Department and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials discussed their evolving strategy for presenting the response to Hurricane Maria.

Despite repeatedly alerting officials to the error, Bloomberg continued receiving the emails for five days. Those messages, each of which was marked “unclassified,” offer a glimpse into the federal government’s struggle to convince the public that the response effort was going well. That struggle was compounded by the commander-in-chief, and eased only when public attention was pulled to a very different disaster.