Hurricane Maria

• 1. Introduction

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  Hurricane Maria reached the island nation of Dominica at a quarter past nine on the evening of the 18th of September 2017. It was a Category 5 storm, and it was the first hurricane of that strength ever recorded striking the island. Two weeks earlier, another Category 5 hurricane, Irma, had swept through the same part of the Caribbean, and communities were still clearing away its wreckage.

  Maria would go on to be the most intense tropical cyclone anywhere in the world in 2017. Its death toll across the Caribbean and the United States mainland reached 3,059. That makes it the deadliest named Atlantic hurricane of the 21st century so far. Financial losses were estimated at more than 91 billion dollars, almost all of it in Puerto Rico.

  Three questions run through this story. How did a storm gather such violence so quickly? Why did an American territory spend months in the dark? And why did it take almost a year to agree on how many people had died?

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• 2. Explosive Growth

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  A tropical wave left the west coast of Africa on the 12th of September 2017 and drifted westward beneath a ridge of high pressure to its north. By midday on the 16th it had organized into Tropical Depression Fifteen, roughly 665 miles east of Barbados. Sea surface temperatures near 29 degrees Celsius, low wind shear and plenty of moisture high in the atmosphere helped it along. Six hours later satellite images showed a well-defined circulation, and the system was named Tropical Storm Maria.

  Late on the 17th, a burst of thunderstorms over its center turned Maria into a hurricane. What followed was among the fastest strengthening episodes the Atlantic has ever recorded. In about 24 hours the winds nearly doubled, from 85 mph to 165 mph, lifting the storm from Category 1 to Category 5. Only a few storms since records began have intensified faster. By then the center sat just 15 miles east-southeast of Dominica.

  Crossing Dominica's mountains weakened Maria slightly, to Category 4. It recovered quickly, and at 03:00 UTC on the 20th, southeast of Puerto Rico, it reached its peak. Winds were 175 mph and the central pressure had fallen to 908 millibars. That ranks Maria twelfth among the most intense Atlantic hurricanes since reliable records began.

  An eyewall replacement cycle then intervened. This is a reshuffling of the thunderstorms ringing the eye, and it cut Maria's winds to 155 mph before it reached Puerto Rico. It also tripled the size of the eye, which widened from 9 to 28 nautical miles. A larger eye meant a far bigger share of the island felt the most intense winds. Maria came ashore near Yabucoa at 6:15 on the morning of Wednesday the 20th of September, local time. No stronger hurricane had struck the island since the 1928 San Felipe Segundo hurricane.

  On the afternoon of the 20th, back over the Atlantic, Maria regained major hurricane strength. On the 22nd it reached a secondary peak of 125 mph north of Hispaniola. It then crept toward the American East Coast while its eye repeatedly appeared and vanished. By the 25th it crossed waters cooled by Hurricane Jose a week earlier, and its inner core collapsed. On the 28th a trough pushed it out to sea as a tropical storm. It became extratropical on the 30th and dissipated on the 2nd of October. After the season ended, the name Maria was retired.

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• 3. Dominica Goes Silent

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  Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit's official residence was among the buildings that lost their roofs on Dominica, and floodwater rose inside until he needed rescuing. He called the devastation "mind boggling" and then went offline. Cellular, radio and internet services all failed, and for a couple of days the outside world had little idea what had happened. Ham radio operators in the capital, Roseau, reported "total devastation" on the 19th, with half the city under water. The next morning, the first aerial footage showed the scale of it.

  The winds, the strongest ever to hit the island, touched all 73,000 residents in some way. Roofs failed on as many as 98% of buildings, shelters included, and half of the houses lost their frames. In Pointe Michel, south of Roseau, river flooding and landslides destroyed about 80% of the town's structures and caused most of the country's deaths. The east coast fared no better. Marigot was 80% damaged, and in Saint David Parish the settlements of Castle Bruce, Good Hope and Grand Fond were practically eradicated, with homes left hanging off cliffs.

  All 53 of the island's health facilities were affected, including the main hospital. In Roseau nearly every power pole was down, the public library lost its roof panels, and the Baptist church kept only one wall. The forests suffered as much as the buildings. Nearly all vegetation was stripped, and every banana and tuber plantation was lost, along with livestock and farm equipment. The Assessment Capacities Project put the losses at EC$3.69 billion, or US$1.37 billion. That equals 226 percent of the country's 2016 economic output. The confirmed death toll of 65 includes 34 people missing and presumed dead, as counted in April 2019.

  More than 85% of houses were damaged and over a quarter were destroyed outright, leaving more than 50,000 people without a home. With sewers broken and water cut off, health workers feared outbreaks of diarrhea and dysentery. Dust from the debris caused breathing problems. Light rain eased the dust but slowed the work of rebuilding roofs. Skerrit tied the destruction from Irma and Maria to climate change. "To deny climate change... is to deny a truth we have just lived," he said.

  The ship USS Wasp, which had been helping after Irma, reached Dominica on the 22nd of September with two helicopters for hard-to-reach areas. The next day, at the United Nations General Assembly, Skerrit called the situation an "international humanitarian emergency". Tarpaulins came from Venezuela, Israel, Cuba, Jamaica and other countries. The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility paid out about US$19.2 million. Yet when schools began to reopen on the 16th of October, UNICEF said all 23,000 of the island's children remained vulnerable because clean drinking water was hard to reach. Almost two years later, shelters were still running because so many homes lacked proper roofs. Even the relief carried a cost: aid shipments brought non-native species that islanders were still trying to remove in 2022.

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• 4. Along the Storm's Track

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  Barbados never saw the eye of Maria, yet heavy rain of three to five inches flooded parts of the island. In Christ Church, water trapped residents of the Goodland neighborhood inside their homes, and the business streets of Saint Lawrence Gap went under. Rough seas flooded sidewalks in Bridgetown, and high winds caused an island-wide power outage. On Saint Lucia, rock slides, landslides and fallen trees blocked roads, and the banana industry lost crops to the wind.

  Maria passed 30 miles off the northern shore of Martinique and spared the island its hurricane-force winds. Even so, 70,000 households, about 40% of the population, lost power by the 19th, and water service was cut to 50,000 customers. The commune of Le Marigot recorded 6.7 inches of rain in 24 hours. About 70% of banana crops were damaged, and agricultural losses were put at US$42 million. Nobody died, though four people were injured.

  On Guadeloupe, hurricane-force winds lasted for hours as Maria passed to the south. Gourbeyre recorded 101 mph, and waves reached 20 feet. Matouba, high in the mountains, collected 18.07 inches of rain. About 80,000 households, 40% of the population, lost power. Les Saintes, Marie-Galante and La Désirade were cut off for several days. Nearly all banana crops on Basse-Terre were destroyed, which farmers described as "complete annihilation". Four people died, and damage reached at least €100 million, or US$120 million.

  Saint Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, took Maria's weaker outer eyewall two weeks after Irma had hit Saint Thomas and Saint John. Gusts at the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge reached 137 mph. The town of Frederiksted suffered the worst damage. Three people died: one drowned, one was trapped by a mudslide, and one had a fatal heart attack. It took almost a year for power to return to most residents. President Donald Trump declared a major disaster one day after the storm. The office of congresswoman Stacey Plaskett said that after both hurricanes, 90% of the territory's buildings were damaged or destroyed, and 13,000 had lost their roofs.

  In the Dominican Republic, floods and landslides cut off 38 communities, and five men died. Four were of Haitian origin and were swept away by floodwaters. Haiti lost three people, including a 45-year-old man in Limbe who tried to cross a flooded river. The mainland United States felt the storm too. Rip currents drowned three swimmers at the Jersey Shore on the weekend of the 23rd and the 24th of September, and a fourth person drowned at Fernandina Beach, Florida. In North Carolina, Maria stayed offshore but flooded Highway 12 and washed out paved lanes at the ferry terminal on Ocracoke Island.

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• 5. An Island Already Strained

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  The median age of the power plants run by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority was 44 years when Maria arrived. The utility was already struggling with mounting debt, budget cuts imposed under the PROMESA law, and the loss of 30 percent of its workforce since 2012. Local newspapers often reported poor maintenance and outdated controls. Water was no better off. The Natural Resources Defense Council reported that seventy percent of the island had water that failed the standards of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act.

  Irma had passed two weeks earlier, and about 80,000 people still had no power as Maria approached. FEMA's Caribbean Distribution Center warehouse, its only emergency stockpile in the islands, sits on Puerto Rico. By the 15th of September, 83% of its items had gone out for Irma relief, mostly to the U.S. Virgin Islands. That included 90% of the water and all of the tarps and cots. Maria arrived before the shelves were restocked.

  Officials announced that 450 shelters would open on the afternoon of the 18th, and by the next day at least 2,000 people had sought refuge. Anonymous location data shared by Google users showed that travel off the island rose 20% the day before landfall. Many headed for Orlando, Miami, New York City and Atlanta.

  San Juan recorded a gust of 113 mph just before landfall, and Caguas received 37.9 inches of rain. In some municipalities there were more than 25 landslides per square mile. San Juan flooded waist-deep in places, and the coastal La Perla neighborhood was largely destroyed. In Cataño, the Juana Matos neighborhood was estimated to be 80 percent destroyed. Governor Ricardo Rosselló estimated that over 300,000 homes were destroyed.

  In the town of Toa Baja, storm surge and flash flooding from flood gate releases at La Plata Lake Dam trapped thousands of residents. Survivors said the water rose at least 6 feet in 30 minutes and reached 15 feet in some areas. More than 2,000 people were rescued when military help arrived 24 hours after the storm. At least eight people died there.

  The entire power grid failed, leaving all 3.4 million residents without electricity. Ninety-five percent of cell networks went down, and 85% of above-ground phone and internet cables were knocked out. Only twelve radio stations stayed on the air through the storm. The island's NEXRAD Doppler radar sits 2,800 feet above sea level, and its protective dome, built to withstand winds over 130 mph, was destroyed. The 30-foot antenna was blown off its pedestal. The anemometer there read about 145 mph before communications broke, and the radar returned to service nine months later. At the Arecibo Observatory, a 96-foot line feed antenna fell 500 feet and punctured the dish below.

  Farms were hit just as hard. About 80 percent of the territory's agriculture was lost, with losses estimated at $780 million. Coffee suffered most, with 18 million trees destroyed. Bringing back even 15% of the island's coffee production would take five to ten years.

  Offshore, the former survey ship Ferrel, carrying a family of four, sent a distress signal while battling 20-foot waves and 115 mph winds near Vieques. The Coast Guard, the Navy and the British Royal Navy searched for the vessel. On the 21st, the mother and her two children were rescued, but the father drowned inside the capsized ship. Years later, from the 23rd of November 2022 to the 23rd of April 2023, the Whitney Museum of American Art showed an exhibition of Puerto Rican art made in the wake of the hurricane.

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• 6. Months in the Dark

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  On the 26th of September, 95% of Puerto Rico had no power, fewer than half of residents had tap water, and 95% of the island had no cell service. By the 6th of October, 89% of the island still had no power. A month after the storm, 88% of the island, about 3 million people, remained dark. At the three-month mark, 45% of Puerto Ricans, over 1.5 million people, were still without electricity. Power did not return to every customer until August 2018.

  Most hospitals were open after a month, but they ran on backup generators that gave only limited power. About half of the island's sewage treatment plants were not working. Nearly a month after the storm, only 392 of Puerto Rico's 5,073 miles of road were open, and some towns could be reached only by helicopter. On the 1st of October, 720 of 1,100 gas stations were open. The Guajataca Dam was structurally damaged, and on the 22nd of September a flash flood emergency led to evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people, with about 70,000 thought to be at risk.

  The military response grew quickly. On the 24th of September, the ships USS Kearsarge and USS Oak Hill arrived with 2,400 marines of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. By then thirteen Coast Guard ships were operating around the island. The big ports reopened on the 25th, when eleven cargo vessels delivered 1.3 million liters of water, 23,000 cots and dozens of generators. By the 26th, government agencies had delivered four million meals, six million liters of water and 70,000 tarps. National Guard troops arrived from nine states.

  Yet supplies often sat idle. With communications down, only 20% of truck drivers reported to work, and goods piled up at ports. By the 28th of September the Port of San Juan had dispatched just 4% of the deliveries it had received. That same day Lieutenant General Jeffrey S. Buchanan was sent to lead military relief. He named "red tape, lack of drivers, and a crippling power outage" as the reasons containers were stuck.

  The hospital ship USNS Comfort left Norfolk, Virginia, on the 29th of September and reached San Juan on the 3rd of October. Most of its 250 beds went unused because so few patients were referred to it. Governor Rosselló blamed "the communications flow" for the disconnect. By the 8th of November the ship's staff had treated 1,476 patients, including 147 surgeries and two births.

  Some help came from private groups. Hundreds of Tesla Powerwall battery systems were shipped to be paired with solar panels and Sonnen microgrids at 15 emergency community centers. A charity called Light Up Puerto Rico raised money for solar products. Four of the island's five large solar farms were themselves damaged. Jennifer Aniston pledged a million dollars, split between the Red Cross and the Ricky Martin Foundation for Puerto Rico.

  The human cost showed in quieter ways. The New York Times reported that the suicide rate had doubled compared with before the storm. More than 100,000 people had left for the mainland by the 5th of November, and 130,000 by the 17th of December. A study from Hunter College forecast a population drop of about 14 percent.

  The damage reached the mainland as well. Medical devices and pharmaceuticals make up 30% of the Puerto Rican economy, and factories shut down or cut production. The result was a months-long shortage of IV bags in the United States, which collided with flu season in January 2018. On the 11th of February, a fire at a substation in Monacillo caused a blackout in the north. On the 1st of March, a failed transmission line cut power to more than 970,000 people. On the 18th of April, the whole island lost power again, and rapid transit passengers needed help leaving stalled trains. For the 2018 hurricane season, FEMA stocked 35 times more bottled water, 43 times more tarps and 16 times more meals than the year before.

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• 7. Counting the Dead

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  The Puerto Rican government first attributed 64 deaths directly to the hurricane. Scores of people who survived the winds died afterward, and wrecked roads and communications made it hard to document them. On the 11th of October, Vox reported 81 deaths linked to Maria, with another 450 awaiting investigation and 69 people missing. Official statistics showed 238 more deaths in September and October 2017 than in the same months of 2016.

  Journalists and scientists then went looking. A two-week CNN investigation of 112 funeral homes, about half of the island's total, found 499 deaths described as hurricane-related between the 20th of September and the 19th of October. Researchers Alexis Santos and Jeffrey Howard used average monthly deaths and the post-storm spike to estimate 1,085 deaths by the end of November. The New York Times, using a similar method, found 1,052 more deaths in the 42 days after Maria than in earlier years. Compared with the two previous Septembers, deaths from sepsis rose 47%, pneumonia 45%, emphysema 43%, and diabetes 31%. A Harvard survey of 3,299 households produced estimates ranging from 793 to 8,498 excess deaths.

  On the 18th of December, Governor Rosselló ordered a recount and new analysis. In February 2018 the review went to the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Meanwhile three lawsuits, including one from CNN and Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism, forced the release of more death statistics. They showed 1,427 excess deaths from September to December 2017 compared with the average for the same months in 2013-2016. The government admitted the toll exceeded 64 but waited for the commissioned study.

  In late August 2018, almost a year after the storm, the Milken Institute published its answer. After accounting for people who had left the island, it estimated 2,658-3,290 additional deaths in the six months following the hurricane. The governor then raised the official toll from 64 to 2,975.

  In September 2018, President Trump disputed the figure. He wrote that "3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico" and claimed Democrats had inflated the count to make him look bad. He offered no evidence. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz criticized the claim, as did Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a fellow Republican and Florida congresswoman.

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• 8. Aid and Anger

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  The Jones Act became an early flashpoint. It prevented Puerto Rico from receiving aid and supplies from non-U.S.-flagged ships sailing from U.S. ports. The Department of Homeland Security did not waive it at once, saying port and trucking capacity were the real limits. After a formal request from Governor Rosselló, the act was waived for ten days starting on the 28th of September.

  On the 26th, Mayor Cruz called the situation a "terrifying humanitarian crisis" and pleaded for faster relief. On the 29th she said, "We are dying and you are killing us with the inefficiency". Trump answered that she showed "poor leadership". General Joseph L. Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau, defended the response and pointed out that an island is harder to supply than the mainland.

  On the 2nd of October, Oxfam announced it would step in, for the first time on American soil since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Oxfam America's president, Abby Maxman, said the group was "outraged at the slow and inadequate response". Trump visited Puerto Rico on the 3rd of October. He compared Maria with Katrina, argued that this was not "a real catastrophe", and asked, "What is your death count as of this morning, 17?" At a shelter he handed out canned goods and paper towels, and told residents the cost had thrown the federal budget "a little out of whack". Critics widely condemned the remarks.

  Elaine Duke, the acting Secretary of Homeland Security at the time, recalled years later that Trump had asked, "Can we sell the island?" She said the idea was never raised again. Politico compared the federal response with the one for Hurricane Harvey in Texas a month earlier and found Maria's slower. A Harvard Humanitarian Initiative analysis in March 2018 concluded the military mission was better than critics said, though flawed.

  The money moved slowly too. Governor Rosselló asked Congress for $94.4 billion, and the territorial government estimated it needed $132 billion from 2018 to 2028. By November 2021 the federal government had allocated $28.9 billion in government-to-government assistance, $20 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds, and $9.5 billion for the power grid. The Government Accountability Office reported that by August 2022 Puerto Rico had spent only $5.3 billion of the first sum, and just $407 million on permanent repairs. About 60% of households that applied to FEMA were rejected, mostly for lack of proof of ownership. Many homes sit on family land passed down without a title deed. Only about 50% of houses carried insurance covering wind damage.

  Politics added more delay. In 2019 and 2020 the Trump administration added layers of federal review for housing block grant money, citing corruption risks. Slow arrival of funding became an issue in the 2020 presidential election, and the Biden administration later removed the extra restrictions. In January 2021, people shaken by the earthquakes of 2019-20 broke into a warehouse in Ponce and found aid supplies meant for Maria survivors. As of January 2023, roofs damaged by Maria, Irma and even the 1998 Hurricane Georges were still being repaired.

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