Natural disasters are inevitable, however, their impact and destruction are fully preventable. With the right resources a country can recover from the damages brought on by natural disasters, however, this was not the case for Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria devastated the island in late 2017 causing economic, social, and infrastructural damage. Immediately after the hurricane had struck the island, hospital administrations met with physicians to discuss the plans moving forward as many people were going to need immediate medical care which they had to be prepared to provide (Pullen 2018). Although immediate action was taken by people on the island, the impact proved to be much larger than what was anticipated. Similar to the rest of the island, hospitals were not equipped for the destruction that the hurricane brought about, causing many areas in Puerto Rico to be socially vulnerable and unable to recover. West (2023) analyzes the social impact in depth with her study on social vulnerability and population loss in Puerto Rico after the hurricane. Ultimately her results West (2023) show that areas with low access to proper resources were most likely to experience high population loss and were more socially vulnerable as the resources they needed were not readily available. As a result of this social susceptibility, Puerto Ricans began to move away from the island causing a large out-migration of natives. Similar to West’s results, out-migration from Puerto Rico remains elevated particularly for more vulnerable areas on the island due to lack of housing and clean water (DeWaard, Johnson, and Whitaker 2020). To access resources such as clean water people had to use cisterns, buckets, water bottles, natural springs, municipal oases, and the Army. People used to tap into networks with which they did not particularly share common goals or interests to get the necessities needed for survival (Ficek 2018).
Credit: Coast Guard aircrew delivers FEMA aid to Aguada, Puerto Rico by Coast Guard News from Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND
Moreover, to mitigate the impact of Hurricane Maria the US implemented FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) stepped in to offer humanitarian aid to Puerto Ricans. However, FEMA was severely underprepared with supplies and assistance (Ficek 2018). Hurricane Maria caused extensive damage and exacerbated existing social and infrastructural deficiencies, which have yet to be adequately addressed.