Aerial photo of the floadings in the costal town of Loiza, in the north shore of Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria passed through Puerto Rico leaving behind a path of destruction across the national territory. (Photo: Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The United States had already seen its share of disasters, from back-to-back hurricanes that devastated Texas, Florida and the US Virgin Islands to roaring wildfires in the West.
Then, after battering the rest of the Caribbean, Hurricane Maria left the island of Puerto Rico facing a humanitarian crisis. About a dozen people died in the Sept. 21 storm and the island was plunged into darkness.
Now, some 3.4 million Puerto Ricans – which is to say, 3.4 million American citizens – are confronting life without electricity, gas, cellular service and, in many cases, a home.
Puerto Rico took such a severe blow from Hurricane Maria that restoring power may take months, the governor says. https://t.co/qGy2Ym9yiy pic.twitter.com/g5h1XDlzZ1
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) September 21, 2017
After a decade of fiscal decline and a May 2017 bankruptcy, Puerto Rico has become exceptionally vulnerable to disasters like Maria. As both a policy analyst and the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, I’m concerned about how austerity-related reforms are now threatening the survival of not just my family there but everyone on the island.
Though food insecurity, poor health care and resource-starved public transit all predate the hurricane, the result of both damaging US policy and deepening financial crisis, these three problems will dramatically complicate Puerto Rico’s recovery.
Food Insecurity
Because Puerto Rico imports over 85 percent of its food, food security on the island has always been fragile. The US territory has been rationing supplies since Hurricane Irma in early September, but according to Puerto Rico’s former secretary of agriculture, it may have just one month’s worth of food on…