Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less. We're your guide to the numbers in the news and in the world around us.

And I'm Tim Harford. And I'm Tim Harford.

And I'm Kate Lamble.

This week we're focusing on a story in Puerto Rico,

which is a sort of detached part of the United States,

called an unincorporated territory.

Puerto Rico is currently suffering from a debt crisis.

It owes billions to people holding government bonds.

And the islands also recovering from devastating Hurricane Maria, which struck last September.

I spent 24 hours in my office refreshing the computer so that I could get some information about the hurricane.

Alexis Santos is the director of the Applied Demography Program at Penn State University in the US,

but on September the 20th last year, he was just another concerned citizen, worried about his family living on the island.

I still recall the day in which I dialed my mom's phone number 112 times and the 112 times was when she picked up.

In the media aftermath, Alexis watched as President Trump visited Puerto Rico.

Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina...

...