Hurricane Maria

Impact and Response in Puerto Rico

Agenda

1. History of Borinquén
2. Pre-Maria
3. Maria
4. Post-Maria
5. Conclusions

Borinquén to US Commonwealth

500 AD : Taínos (originating in Venezuela) settled on the island

1493 : On 2nd expedition to Indies, Columbus claimed the island

for Spain

Mid-1500s : Smallpox kills majority Taíno, with many enslaved

to mine and construct settlements (alongside African slaves)

1898 : Spain ceded Puerto Rico to US after Spanish-American

War

1917 : Made US citizens + males eligible for draft

1948-1952 : Became commonwealth - able to elect own

Governor, non-voting representative to Congress, and vote in

presidential primaries

Pre-Maria

Pre-1996 : Booming economy and tax breaks that lured pharma and manufacturing

1996 : Congress phased out tax breaks and businesses began to leave the island over 10 years

2006 : A series of tax hikes, spending cuts, emigration to the mainland (brain drain and lower tax base), and high interest rates lead to 10 year spiral

2008 : Great Recession

2014 : $72B in debt owed (68% of total PR GDP)

2015 : 46% of the population live below the poverty line

To the dashboards...

Data Limitations

• FEMA wiped public data
• Gaps in time series data
• Not all funding actually allocated
• Inconsistencies in how deaths categorized and computed (65 to 4500)
• Transparency is not a requirement

Conclusions

• Deadliest US hurricane in modern history
• The infrastructure and economic state before the hurricane left the island very vulnerable
• PR’s commonwealth status added complexity to get funding and personnel support
• Compared to other 2017 US hurricanes, funding, personnel, and urgency was notably lacking

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Questions?

References

https://hurricanemariasdead.com/database.html

https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/1/e001191#DC1

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060074219

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDk-EjjaMSk

https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/puerto-rico-history

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090915/origins-puerto-rican-debt-crisis.asp

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=972615792d0144f4aa8e7353190ba940

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/us/politics/trump-puerto-rico-aid.html

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=population%20puerto%20rico%202017&g=0400000US72,72.050000&hidePreview=true&tid=ACSDP1Y2017.DP05&y=2017&vintage=2017&layer=VT_2017_050_00_PY_D1&cid=DP05_0001E&tp=true&moe=false

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