Back to Back Hurricanes

In September 2017, Borikén (Puerto Rico) was hit by two back to back hurricanes: first Irma, then María. For the next following days, many would have no way to know if their family was even alive.

When I finally got in contact with my family, I learned that the river next to my dad’s house had flooded, and everything in my childhood home was gone. The water levels rose so high that my neighbors had to create a makeshift bridge into one neighbor’s two story house in order to stay afloat.

Although the passage of these storms was brief, the damage left by the hurricanes would last for a long time. For months, people were without power. Hospitals had to decide who would live and who would die. People reliant on ventilators stopped breathing. S.O.S, we need water/food was written on our streets. 

 4,645 is a number that has been engraved into our hearts. It is an estimate of the number of people that died directly and indirectly from the impacts of María, although it is believed that the death toll could be higher. And while the effects of Maria impacted us all, they did not impact us all equally.

  

Loíza, my grandfather’s hometown, is a symbol of Black power, of resistance, of Bomba, but is also a town of poverty and storm vulnerability. Hundreds of families were living under blue tarps meant to be temporary roofs in Loíza. The lack of housing and proper electricity combined let simple conditions become fatal. One source estimated that in the months following the hurricane, 20-30 people in Loíza were dying a month. 

    

Many outsiders tried to place the blame on us. They told us that we were unprepared for hurricanes, that we did not take the correct precautions, and that for this reason we suffered such grave consequences. I can assure you that my people have learned to live with hurricanes and have learned to heal from them. But there is only so much we can do to mitigate the weather trends of increasing intensity we are facing. 

    

Puerto Rico is only 3,515 square miles in area, and in that area there are 224 rivers and 553 streams. Surrounding those areas are the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. We cannot build away from water. This makes storm surges and floods resulting from hurricanes have a greater potential for flooding residential areas and causing a loss of life and property. In order to evacuate, we cannot simply drive away. We need plane tickets, and given that almost half of the island lives in poverty, this is not something we can practically do. 

    

It is frustrating because although coastal development, mangrove depletion, and pollution occur on our behalf, we do not contribute a significant portion of carbon emissions. Yet we are some of the first to face the consequences. 

    

To this day just saying the name Maria brings tears to some people's eyes. Until this day, people, myself included, still hold their breath every summer hoping that it will pass without a hurricane accompanying it. And until this day people are living under broken blue tarps with no protection from rain. This is not because we are incapable of lifting ourselves up, but because the systems we should have been able to depend on failed us. 

  

Although FEMA set up an emergency fund for the island, many were unable to access it. FEMA’s applications were online despite the whole island being blacked out without internet access for months, for some even for years. Those that could access the application could only access it in English even though the majority of the island speaks Spanish. Out of those that were able to access applications, over half of their requests, about 62% were denied, many due to informal housing contracts. Out of those that were given money, many were only given a couple of thousand dollars when the rebuilding of their home would cost several thousand. For a lot of people, this is one year’s salary. My dad was one of those 62% of applications, and even though he lost all of his material possessions, he received no help. 

We have healed, and some of us are still healing. I think that as a country we are a lot more conscious in realizing that if we do not want to suffer the consequences of a damaging hurricane, we have to work with nature because nature protects us.

Mangroves  are some of those protectors. They protect us from storms by taking the first impact of the hurricane. Because of this, mangroves also suffer a lot of damage during intense storms like hurricanes. If hurricanes happen frequently, mangroves can become too damaged to protect us from the first impact of a storm. Given that hurricane Maria followed hurricane Irma, there is a chance that damaged mangrove forests from hurricane Irma may have been a contributing factor to Maria’s damaging impact on the island. One of the current environmental efforts happening on the island to help mitigate the impact of future storms is the restoration of these mangrove forests. 

    

I hope that by working with nature, we can build a wall of protection around ourselves, but the truth is that this will only be a band-aid if we do not find a way to work with nature as a planet. 

Sources

Hickel, Jason. “Quantifying National Responsibility for Climate Breakdown: An Equality-Based Attribution Approach for Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Excess of the Planetary Boundary.” The Lancet Planetary Health, vol. 4, no. 9, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(20)30196-0.

“Hojas De Nuestro Ambiente.” Departamento De Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Feb. 2007. https://www.drna.pr.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Los-r%C3%ADos.pdf

Liu, Huiqing, et al. “Numerical Study of the Sensitivity of Mangroves in Reducing Storm Surge and Flooding to Hurricane Characteristics in Southern Florida.” Continental Shelf Research, vol. 64, 2013, pp. 51–65., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2013.05.015.

“Puerto Rico a Year after Hurricane Maria.” Amnesty International, 7 Oct. 2021, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/09/puerto-rico-a-year-after-hurricane-maria/.  

“Puerto Rico Restoration.” Earth Partnership, https://earthpartnership.wisc.edu/puerto-rico-project/.

“Puerto Rico.” Encyclopedia of the Nations, https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Americas/Puerto-Rico.html.

Univision, and The Associated Press. “¿Murieron 4,645 Personas En Puerto Rico Como Dice Harvard? No Exactamente. Las Cifras Son Más Complicadas.” Univision, 3 June 2018, https://www.univision.com/local/puerto-rico-wlii/murieron-4-645-personas-en-puerto-rico-como-dice-harvard-no-exactamente-las-cifras-son-mas-complicadas.