Hurricane María

English Edition

Introduction


Hurricane María’s Landfall


My Experience at Home in Cidra

Downed power lines in Cidra, Pureto Rico showing cars passing by wreckage.

Downed power line in Cidra, Puerto Rico

I experienced the hurricane with my parents and younger sister in my hometown of Cidra, located in the central region of the main island.  While the most intense part of the hurricane hit us on the 20th of September, by the night before we were already without electricity.  On the 19th, I was also dealing with another natural disaster, a magnitude earthquake of 7.1 Mexico City, where I currently live, causing significant damages to the infraestructure and the loss of 228 lives ( Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres, 2020 ) . My partner was living in one of the areas that were hit the most; it took me hours to finally reach out to her and learn that she and her family were fine. 

Footage of the hurricane hitting my parent's backyard

In the morning of September 21, we started seeing the direct impact of María in the neighborhood. Fortunately we did not experienced significant damages to my parents home, only the falling of trees that blocked the entrance to the house. That same morning, one of our neighbors stopped by and offer to start removing the trees to clean the road. It was the beginning of months of challenges dealing with the lack of water, electricity, fuel, and telecommunications. Regarding the latter, like many Puerto Ricans, we needed to drive to neighboring towns to try to find cellphone signal and communicate with family members in the United Sates.

My older sister in Atlanta and my partner in Mexico City were watching through the news and social media the devastation in the archipelago. At the beginning, our communications with them were sporadic, mainly by text. At home, we were relying on local news radio stations to get a sense of what was happening beyond our neighborhood. The hurricane's impact on Puerto Rico's people and infrastructures was dire.

Images from the aftermath | Photos by Joel A. Blanco-Rivera


Hurricane María's  Impact

Proyecto 4645, from  Facebook page 

In another example of how the number 4645 became more than a statistical estimation, during the protests that led to the resignation of Governor Roselló on July 2019, protest signs included the number 4645.

Proyecto 4645, from  Facebook page 


Solidarity

Reflection

Community Groups

Created on September 2017 to aid communities in the west impacted by Hurricane María, the Brigada has continued working with communities through mutual aid, art, music, and activism. The organization provided support to communities impacted by the earthquakes of December 2019 and January 2020, and by Hurricane Fiona in September 2022.

 Casa Pueblo  (Adjuntas, Puerto Rico)

Community self-management project committed to the protection of natural, cultural and human resources. Born in 1980 to protest the Puerto Rican government’s intentions to start mining explorations that would have affected natural resources in the municipalities of Adjuntas, Utuado, Lares and Jayuya, Casa Pueblo has been a leading organization promoting the use of solar energy. The organization also provides access to its  historical archive .

The Centro de la Mujer Dominicana was founded in 2003 to support immigrant women from the Dominican Republic and other nationalities living in Puerto Rico. Among the services the organization offers are social work, psychotherapy, and legal assistance. It was one of the organizations in Puerto Rico that collaborated with the UO Puerto Rico Project.

ISER Caribe develop research on ecological restoration of coral reefs, potable water, and climate change science. The organization provides community outreach and support to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and The Bahamas. It was one of the organizations in Puerto Rico that República Dominicana y las Bahamas.

Methodology

The initial idea of this StoryMap was to reflect about the role of archives in documenting significant events in Puerto Rico, taking the UO Puerto Rico Project as an example of such initiatives. The research, and the important collaboration of Kate Thornhill, Public Scholarship Librarian, led me to build a narrative that underscores what happened in Puerto Rico during and after Hurricane María and the importance of solidarity efforts from the communities themselves, while also reflecting on my own experience in Cidra, my own memories. Therefore, we embarqued on a process that led us to important sources to contextualize Puerto Rico during and after María, including the stories that people from San Juan, Morovis, Utuado, Mayagüez, Maricao shared with the UO Puerto Rico Project.

For contextualization of the impact of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, I consulted reports and other sources from FEMA, the U.S Department of Energy, the Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico, and research articles by academics in Puerto Rico. For the migration visualization, Kate and I worked with data from the  Bureau of Transportation Statistics  . Specifically, we were able to download monthly data of the number of passengers per flight, the airports of departure and of arrival from September 2017 to February 2018. Kate curated the data to create the visualization. Regarding the stories, while listening to the interviews, I was able to identify and track news reports about topics that were mentioned by the interviewees. This was particularly the case of the bridge that collapsed in Morovis. I also read news reports to look for information about the particular impacts in the municipalities that the UO Puerto Rico Project visited.

Contributors

The interviews selected for this storymap were done by Prof. Alai Reyes-Santos, Lupe Partida, Bareerah Zafar, April Merrill, Nancy Hernandez, Manuel Mejía, Michelle Gómez, and Jamani Crockett, and edited by Miguel Pérez. You can listen to all the  interviews in the site of the UO Puerto Rico Project . 

The UO Puerto Rico Project community partners in Puerto Rico are: Corillo 100 x 35, Brigada Solidaria del Oeste, ISER Caribe, and Centro de la Mujer Dominicana. My respect and admiration of their inspiring work.

At the University of Oregon, Rachael Sol Lee provided important contributions during the planning process for the StoryMap, particularly in terms of content and data management plans. At the from the University of Oregon Libraries, Elizabeth Peterson’s work on the metadata for the interviews and photos of the UO Puerto Rico Project were of great value to create the StoryMap, captions, alt text and my own data management plan. Franny Gaede, Director of Digital Scholarship Services, supported the team with the process of selection and use of the digital tools to create the StoryMap. Kate Thornhill, also from the University of Oregon Libraries, provided invaluable contributions during the planning process, the creation of the StoryMap. Her questions and observations were of great assistance for my writing process.

The contributions from the people interviewed for the Puerto Rico Project are of fundamental value: Raquel Delgado Valentín, Cristine Díez Correa, Roberto Cabiya, Félix Serrano García, David Saez, Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, Edwin Días, Marie Tere Pérez Torres, and Don Fernando.

 Dr. Alaí Reyes-Santos invited me to write this essay, trusting the significant work she and her students did in Puerto Rico. I will always be grateful.

Works Cited

Banushi, R. (2018, Feb. 5). Llueven las denegatorias de asistencia por parte de FEMA en Puerto Rico. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.  https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2018/02/llueven-las-denegatorias-de-asistencia-por-parte-de-fema-en-puerto-rico/ 

Center for Puerto Rican Studies (2018). New estimates: 135,000+ post-María Puerto Ricans relocated to stateside.  https://centropr-archive.hunter.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/data_sheets/PostMaria-NewEstimates-3-15-18.pdf 

Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency (n.d.). Hurricanes Irma and María.  https://recovery.pr.gov/en/hurricanes 

Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres (2022, Sept. 20). Los sismos del 19 de septiembre.   https://www.gob.mx/cenapred/articulos/los-sismos-del-19-septiembre?idiom=es   [NOTE: This is the citation I added when talking about the earthquake in Mexico. The year I put in the text is not correct. Change it to 2022.]

CoRePI-PR. (2022, Dec. 7). (PR) El estado de las playas de Puerto Rico Post-María.  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/61653d2d9a1748168488235d866f3e89 

DeMarco, C. (2017, Dic. 13). Aumentan a 64 las muertes en PR por el huracán María. Telemundo Nueva York.  https://www.telemundo47.com/noticias/local/aumentan-a-64-las-muertes-en-puerto-rico-por-el-huracan-maria/33440/ 

Kessler, G. (2018, June 1). Did 4,645 people die in Hurricane Maria? Nope. The Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/02/did-4645-people-die-in-hurricane-maria-nope/ 

Kishore, N., Marqués, D., Mahmud, A., Kiang, M. V., Rodriguez, I., Fuller, A., ... & Buckee, C. O. (2018). Mortality in puerto rico after hurricane maria. New England journal of medicine, 379(2), 162-170.  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa1803972 

López Maldonado, C. (2018, Dic. 27). Choretas las cajas de agua a la intemperie en la base de Ceiba. Primera Hora.  https://www.primerahora.com/noticias/gobierno-politica/notas/choretas-las-cajas-de-agua-a-la-intemperie-en-la-base-de-ceiba/#view 

Marrero, O. (2018, Marzo 14). Informe oficial describe el impacto de Irma. Noticel.  https://www.noticel.com/ahora/huracanes/el-tiempo/top-stories/20180317/informe-oficial-describe-el-impacto-de-irma/ 

National Weather Service (2017, Sept. 20). Major Hurricane Maria - September 20, 2017.  https://www.weather.gov/sju/maria2017#:~:text=Around%205%20AM%20AST%20(0900,sustained%20winds%20of%20155%20mph .

Para la Naturaleza. (2021). Adaptation. Annual Report 2021.  https://www.paralanaturaleza.org/dl/Annual-Report-2021.pdf 

Parés Arroyo, M. (2023, Sept. 2). Educación suspende las clases el 8 de septiembre para desarrollar planes de contingencia ante el calor. El Nuevo Día.  https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/notas/educacion-suspende-las- clases-el-8-de-septiembre-para-desarrollar-planes-de-contingencia-ante-el-calor/ 

Quintero, L. (2017, Sept. 10). “Me fui a un refugio. La oscuridad me da miedo”. El País.  https://elpais.com/internacional/2017/09/09/actualidad/1504977271_408532.html#?prm=copy_link  

Reyes-Santos, A. (2018). The beginning. Blog post. Hurricane María and its Aftermath.  https://blogs.uoregon.edu/theuopuertoricoproject/thebeginning/ 

Robles, F., Davis, K., Fink, S., & Almukhtar, S. (2017, Dec. 9). Official Toll in Puerto Rico: 64. Actual Deaths May Be 1,052. The New York Times.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-death-toll.html 

Rolón Cintrón, H. (2018). “Estaba asustada, pidiéndole a papito Dios que pudiéramos cruzar el río para ver a nuestra familia”. El Nuevo Día.  https://web.archive.org/web/20210808042620/https://huracanmaria.elnuevodia.com/2018/estaba-asustada-pidiendole-a-papito-dios-que-pudieramos-cruzar-el-rio-para-ver-a-nuestra-familia/ 

Sullivan, L. & Schwartz, E. (2018, July 13). FEMA Report Acknowledges Failures In Puerto Rico Disaster Response. NPR.  https://www.npr.org/2018/07/13/628861808/fema-report-acknowledges-failures-in-puerto-rico-disaster-response 

Tolentino Rosario, C. (2023, Julio 14). Junio de 2023 establece precedente como uno de los meses más cálidos en la historia de Puerto Rico. El Nuevo Día.  https://www.elnuevodia.com/ciencia-ambiente/ciencia-ambiente/notas/junio-de- 2023-establece-precedente-como-uno-de-los-meses-mas-calidos-en-la-historia-de- puerto-rico/ 

U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.). QuickFacts: Cidra Municipio, Puerto Rico.  https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/cidramunicipiopuertorico/PST045222 

U.S. Department of Energy. Infrastructure Security & Energy Restoriation (2017, Nov. 2). Hurricanes Maria & Irma November 2 Event Summary (Report #73).  https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2017/11/f39/Hurricanes%20Maria%20and%20Irma%20Event%20Summary%20November%202%2C%202017.pdf  

U.S. Department of Energy. Infrastructure Security & Energy Restoriation (2018, Feb. 28). Hurricanes Maria & Irma February 28 Event Summary (Report #93).  https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2018/02/f49/Hurricanes%20Maria%20and%20Irma%20Event%20Summary%20February%2028%2C%202018.pdf  

Velázquez-Estrada, A. L. (2019). Perfil del migrante 2017. Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico.  https://censo.estadisticas.pr/sites/default/files/publicaciones/PM_2017_IEPR_0.pdf 

Wapa TV (2017). Presidente Donald Trump evalúa daños del huracán María en Puerto Rico.  https://youtu.be/45EMtvTpG9o?si=jycO2s_4_G6-ybCT 

Zafar, B. (2018, April 20). A photographic journey. Blog post. Hurricane María and its Aftermath.  https://blogs.uoregon.edu/theuopuertoricoproject/in-the-moment/ 

Zapatos cubren escalinatas del Capitolio en protesta por muertes tras María (2018, Junio 1). Noticel.  https://www.noticel.com/huracanes/el-tiempo/la-calle/top-stories/20180601/zapatos-cubren-escalinatas-del-capitolio-en-protesta-por-muertes-tras-maria/ 

Sponsorship

Sponsored Just Futures Institute and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Thank you's: Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía | University of Oregon Libraries | Just Futures Institute | The Healers Project

Authors & Designers: Joel A. Blanco-Rivera and Kate Thornhill

Copyright & Licensing: In-Copyright; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

Downed power line in Cidra, Puerto Rico