Puerto Rico
The devastation from Hurricane Fiona and a brief comparison to Hurricane Maria, five years ago.
In Puerto Rico this week, life is all about clean up and survival. Obviously not in that order.
Over 30 inches (THIRTY) of rain fell on the island after Hurricane Fiona, at category 1 strength, passed over Puerto Rico on Sunday and Monday. The storm has now increased to category 4 strength as it heads further north.
Many people (likely over 1 million) are still without power in Puerto Rico, and over 750,000 homes are without water.
[Global Giving is one of several organizations currently organizing and accepting donations for relief. ]
One of the most robust signals of climate change is that more rain is falling in the extreme rainfall events. Thirty inches is just insane. Rivers in Puerto Rico crested at levels never seen before and so rapidly you could apparently see them rising in real time.
Five years ago this month, Hurricane Maria battered the island and left some residents without power for months. There is great fear that the same thing will happen here too.
A few comparisons between Fiona and Maria:
Maria was a category 4 storm when it hit Puerto Rico, so the wind damage was greater. Around 3000 people were killed on the island from Hurricane Maria, though many of those deaths came after the storm from poor health care and lack of basic supplies. The direct number of deaths from the storm was officially around 65.
From Fiona, we know about two deaths in Puerto Rico (one from misuse of a generator) and two in the Dominican Republic. Hopefully the death toll will stay this low. Also, the largest town in Puerto Rico - San Juan - was not nearly as directly impacted from Fiona as it was from Maria. In Maria, the storm track went right over the top of the island, whereas in Fiona, it skirted the western end of the island.
The rainfall is likely about the same total (although it’s possibly that in Maria, it was a smaller area of very high amounts…we will need to wait for more post-storm analysis to tell more).
This image is from a NOAA report of Hurricane Maria. Over 30 inches of rain fell in parts of the island during Hurricane Maria, and this is also true for Fiona. You can also see the thin line of the track going directly over the island for Maria.
In terms of preparedness and recovery, there are two competing factors at play in managing the aftermath of Fiona:
The government is more prepared for the emergency management of the storm (more generators, tarps, water, and other supplies are on hand on the island for example).
BUT, thousands of residents that were worst-impacted by Maria are still without proper roofing, and only a fraction of the Maria relief funding for restoration and improvement of the grid (for example) has been spent. This means that the electrical grid is still woefully underprepared for this kind of storm.
The story of hurricane damage and recovery in Puerto Rico is one of climate change, along with a lack of social and economic resources, but it’s also a story of political, social, and economic decision-making and systems that has left Puerto Rican people underprepared. Although there are some unique aspects of this in Puerto Rico, the same basic conclusion is also true in much of the rest of America by the way.
But the main story this week of course, is the human suffering. May our thoughts and donations and support go to Puerto Rico as they are trying to survive the aftermath of the hurricane.
I have a friend of 25 plus years whose parents still live there. The difference in their immediate area this time compared to Maria is incredible. They currently are without power, she only heard from them this morning to know they are okay. They said the area immediately around them is much less devastated than with Maria, and we are hoping that is true for the rest of the island.
Their experience with Maria was terrifying during the storm but supply chain issues after the storm led directly to many deaths, as you mentioned. In their case a life-changing medication was still not available to them when the prescription was due for renewal, luckily there was a hospital that had reopened nearby and though she was hospitalized for some time to recover she did survive.
The ripples from "a lot of rain" can be hard to measure until long after the fact.