Surviving Hurricane Maria
One year ago, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. After the storm, the island’s healthcare system collapsed. While some clung to the few services available, others invented their own solutions to stay alive. Many felt the U.S. government had forgotten them.
Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico’s southeast region with 155 mph winds. Barely two weeks had passed since Hurricane Irma grazed the island.
The island went dark, with no communication system.
When the chronically ill and the wounded went to seek treatment, they often learned that hospitals could not provide services.
Governor Ricardo Rossello admitted that Puerto Rico's disaster protocols were "insufficient" and said doctors were not prepared to accurately report deaths in the midst of a catastrophe.
This year, FEMA recognized its failures in attending to the island’s needs: it admitted local personnel were not prepared to respond to a Category 4 hurricane like Maria.
Puerto Rico has 69 hospitals, both public and private. Some will be demolished, like the hospital on the island of Vieques. Others have already trained their doctors with new protocols in the case of another major hurricane. The Dr. Federico Trilla hospital, located 11 miles from San Juan, is one such hospital.
A doctor shortage has aggravated the health crisis: only 9,000 doctors remain on the island, compared to 14,000 in 2006.
“Although I have experienced other hurricanes, I had never lived through an experience as arduous as María. Now we have prepared ourselves with a new radio system. We’re switching over to analog, because everything digital collapsed during Maria”.
“I would say that the whole country will now be more prepared than we were when Maria hit. Many clinics now have two or three generators; they have solar panels to provide energy at least to the emergency room, or where medicines or vaccines are distributed.”.
“I will never forget a man in my town who committed suicide one morning. That afternoon the power came back on in the area where he lived. That really shocked us all”.
“Several hurricanes have been forecasted in the Atlantic and emotionally I’m not 100%. I cannot look at the news, I avoid it for that reason. I'm afraid of losing what little I have now. It is not okay. It's hard to talk about”.
“One day, a storm hit pretty far away and we lost power for more than 24 hours. We were more prepared. But we also know that the system would not survive a severe wind storm”.
“If Puerto Rico were to suffer another Maria, I don’t know what I would do. I suffered a lot from the consequences of that hurricane. This little house was shaking and I said: 'At any moment this could collapse.’ There was nothing, there was no other place to go”.