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Four years ago, Hurricane Mar铆a made landfall in the Puerto Rican archipelago on Sept. 20, 2017, leaving no part of the land unscathed. The hurricane  and mudslides, washed out roads, destroyed tens of thousands of homes, farms, and businesses, caused the  (the second largest in the world), knocked out communications, led to widespread shortages in food, drinking water, and gasoline, and was ultimately responsible for thousands of deaths. 

The government of Puerto Rico has accepted 2,975 as the official death count of the hurricane based on a study completed by . However, a similar study done by  places that toll at 4,645. The actual death toll is likely significantly higher. 

Zaira Arvelo Alicea and her husband, Juan Carlos, survived the hurricane by floating for 16 hours on a patched air mattress. They were eventually rescued and brought to a small apartment where they stayed with a group of 22 evacuees for two nights before walking miles from their ruined home in Aguadilla to a family member鈥檚 house in Aguada, both towns on the west coast of the main island of Puerto Rico.

Arvelo Alicea was the first person I interviewed for the oral history book  (Haymarket Books, September 2021), a collection of 17 first-person stories that explore what it means to be a U.S. citizen in a colonial context, how communities come together in the wake of disaster, and how precarity is exacerbated for those on the front lines of climate crisis.

As Arvelo Alicea was recounting the slow trek toward family, describing cars that had been caught up in a storm surge of ocean water and balanced upside down along the highway, she paused to ask, 鈥淗ow do you describe the smell of decaying bodies?鈥� Our conversation for the day ended there as I turned off the recorder and reached for her hand across the table.

Hurricane Mar铆a was鈥攁nd is鈥攁 site of trauma for all who survived. But that trauma includes not only the violent storm that battered the archipelago for over 30 hours, but also the long months, and now years, of inadequate government relief and aid that were meant to help those in crisis.

Arvelo Alicea鈥檚 narrative opens the Mi Mar铆a oral history collection, a collaboration with the nonprofit . Throughout the project, I worked with more than 100 students at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayag眉ez where I teach, and traveled鈥攁long with co-editor Marci Denesiuk鈥攖hrough a Puerto Rico scarred by the hurricane and marred by insufficient relief efforts. 

The work brought us from a farm nestled in the peaks of the Cordillera Central mountain range in Adjuntas to a health clinic being rebuilt on the island municipality of Culebra off the easternmost coast of the main island and eventually to a community arts center in the under-resourced neighborhood of La Perla in San Juan. 

Horror Stories of Survivors Showed the Extent of the Disaster

The stories collected in this project illuminate the massive obstacles to surviving Hurricane Mar铆a in Puerto Rico. In the middle of the hurricane, Emmanuel Rodr铆guez frantically tried to drive his pregnant wife to the hospital, only to be forced to return home when they found the road ahead of them had collapsed under a mudslide. 

Carlos Bonilla Rodr铆guez watched from a neighbor鈥檚 home as the hurricane peeled the roof off his house and threw it into the wind, with his possessions following close behind. 

Other narrators told of desperately holding doors shut against the wind and barricading windows as best they could, all while frantically mopping the water that relentlessly poured into their homes. Still others described being forced into hastily organized government shelters, where the sick lay crying all night and people with disabilities were left to fend for themselves.

The Post-Hurricane Period Was Equally Disastrous

The aftermath of Mar铆a was as disastrous as the actual storm and the stories of survivors have drawn attention to the precarity of surviving in the weeks, months, and years that followed the hurricane.

Neysha Irizarry Ortiz鈥檚 premature son was born in a makeshift clinic with no electricity three weeks after the hurricane. Luis G. Flores L贸pez watched his father get sicker and sicker as he desperately prayed for the dialysis clinic to reopen so that he could receive lifesaving treatment. A month passed before any government agency or nonprofit came to check on Windy D铆az D铆az, leaving her trapped in her own home because of the debris blocking her wheelchair ramp. 

This natural disaster of the hurricane has been compounded by years of repeated government-level failures. A perpetually  was unable to recover from damages sustained in the hurricane.  of its stated objectives鈥攊nstead appropriating gasoline and moving it from local stations to the sites it deemed essential, leaving none for individuals鈥� cars or generators. 

FEMA also redirected food shipments that did not reach many rural communities or urban neighborhoods and failed to provide shelter to those who had lost their homes. Organization and delivery of relief supplies was so chaotic that stores of  and  are still being discovered. 

Puerto Rico鈥檚 Colonial History Forms the Backdrop of the Hurricane Disaster

The complex colonial roots of Puerto Rico have also shaped the aftermath of the hurricane and stalled recovery. In the 21st century, the U.S. Congress allowed laws that had been enacted to stimulate the economy to lapse. In 2016, the PROMESA law established an external Financial Oversight and Management Board to oversee all aspects of governing Puerto Rico related to finances. 

 enacted by this board have created an ongoing humanitarian crisis, accelerated mass migration from Puerto Rico to the continental United States, and placed medical care, education, and infrastructure in the archipelago in jeopardy. These actions are but one step in the multigenerational colonizing process that has positioned the people of Puerto Rico as second-class citizens who cannot vote for president, do not have a voting representative in Congress, and do not receive equal funding for social welfare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, HUD, and SNAP/NAP, among others.

The precarity continues to this day. In December 2019, an ongoing 鈥攐ver 9,000 earthquakes to date鈥攂egan off the southwestern coast of the main island, forcing thousands to flee their homes, and in 2020 the governor  a state of emergency because of drought and water shortages. 

In just one example of 鈥�,鈥� the power grid of Puerto Rico was recently privatized and, as of June 1, 2021, is being run by , a U.S. and Canadian company. Since the takeover, Luma has fired numerous line workers to curtail expenses, instituted English-language-only customer service, suffered a cyberattack that crashed the customer service portal, and the Costa Sur power plant鈥攄amaged by the earthquakes鈥攎isfired causing a massive grid failure. Combined issues caused Luma to institute rolling blackouts during the height of hurricane season, affecting hospitals and medical care across the archipelago.

These issues with the electrical grid add a layer of complication to surviving the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people do not have a stable home in which to shelter, the running water necessary to wash their hands, or the electricity needed to power a home.

Speaking about her underserved neighborhood, La Perla, in San Juan, Lorel Cubano Santiago鈥攚hose narrative is featured in Mi Mar铆a鈥攂elieves that 鈥渢he lack of aid here is systemic鈥攊t is by design.鈥� Voicing concerns about gentrification, she said, 鈥淥ur people have been systematically treated badly all their lives. Nobody is going to help our community because La Perla is coveted.鈥� She added, 鈥淚f no help comes here, people are hoping that it becomes abandoned, so they can just buy it up.鈥�

Mutual Aid in the Absence of Government Aid

Despite the widespread government-level failures around Hurricane Mar铆a, we repeatedly have seen communities rising up to take care of each other. Grassroots organizations and  efforts have brought people together to cook community meals, care for children and elders, rebuild shelters, provide first aid, and pool funds. 

Cubano Santiago and her neighbors took it upon themselves to feed, clean, and organize La Perla after the hurricane. Neighbors sharing with each other鈥攁nd with strangers鈥攂ecame friends through acts of kindness.

When reading the individual first-person narratives in Mi Mar铆a, several connections between survivor stories emerge, fostering a greater understanding of the ongoing failures of governmental services across the archipelago and the strength of those affected. 

The Broader Significance of Survivor Narratives

Puerto Rico is on the forefront of the global climate emergency, as the latest  and recent storms such as Hurricane Ida reinforce. The ways in which these oral histories demonstrate community responses to disaster are applicable to other places in the world that are likewise being affected by climate change. 

These stories of governmental neglect and second-class citizenship in the face of climate disaster remind us of the systems of marginalization, colonial practice, and institutionalized racism that many communities on the front line of the climate emergency face and will face. The book鈥檚 title, Mi Mar铆a, accentuates the need to reappropriate the narrative about Hurricane Mar铆a and Puerto Rico from the government or media to the people who experienced this disaster. Who tells the story matters. 

The Mi Mar铆a collection is a beginning and not an end, though, as there are countless other stories left to be told. Four years after Hurricane Mar铆a, it is past time to listen.

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Ricia Anne Chansky Sancinito is a professor in the English Department at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayag眉ez, where she directs the Oral History Lab. She focuses on Puerto Rico, disasters, climate, and the environment. Recent publications include Mi Mar铆a: Surviving the Storm, Voices from Puerto Rico (Haymarket 2021), and America Untied: Unraveling National Identity in the Twenty-first Century (Wisconsin 2022). She has won numerous awards for her climate justice project, "Mi Mar铆a: Puerto Rico after the Hurricane."

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