Environmental Violence
Environmental destruction and contamination inflicted on Puerto Rican land and communities. Military testing, toxic waste, industrial pollution, and the health consequences borne by residents.
Events
Puerto Rico's Karst Country: Geological Heritage Under Threat
Puerto Rico's northern karst region — a landscape of limestone mogotes (haystack hills), sinkholes, caves, and underground rivers covering approximately 28% of the island — is one of the most significant tropical karst formations in the world, providing critical aquifer recharge and harboring unique biodiversity, yet faces threats from quarrying, development, and insufficient legal protection.
Mona Island: The Galápagos of the Caribbean
Mona Island — a 22-square-mile uninhabited island between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola — is one of the most ecologically significant and archaeologically rich sites in the Caribbean. Home to endemic species, massive cave systems with Taíno petroglyphs, and a history spanning from pre-Columbian settlement to pirate hideouts to guano mining.
Puerto Rico's Fishing Communities: Maritime Traditions Under Threat
Puerto Rico's artisanal fishing communities — from Cabo Rojo to Fajardo, from La Parguera to Naguabo — represent centuries of maritime tradition that predates colonialism. These communities face threats from tourism development, environmental degradation, overfishing by commercial operations, and climate change. Fishing villages like La Playa de Ponce, Playa de Guayanilla, and Villa Pesquera preserve ways of life that connect Puerto Ricans to the sea.
Deforestation and Recovery of El Yunque and Puerto Rico's Forests
By the 1940s, Puerto Rico had been stripped to approximately 6% forest cover—down from near-total coverage before colonization. Coffee, sugar, and cattle replaced forests across the island. In 1876, King Alfonso XII proclaimed the Luquillo Mountains a reserve, and in 1903 Theodore Roosevelt designated it a federal forest. CCC reforestation in the 1930s-40s planted over 29 million trees. Forest cover recovered to approximately 53% by 2004.
The Trapiche System: Sugar Mills and Forced Labor in Colonial Puerto Rico
Beginning in the early 1500s, Spanish colonists established trapiches (sugar mills) across Puerto Rico's coastal plains, creating a plantation economy driven first by enslaved Taíno and later African labor. The trapiche system shaped the island's geography, ecology, demographics, and social hierarchy for three centuries.
Piñones: Afro-Puerto Rican Community Under Threat
Piñones — a coastal community east of San Juan in the municipality of Loíza — is one of Puerto Rico's most historically significant Afro-Puerto Rican communities. Home to mangrove forests, traditional fishing, and Afro-Puerto Rican culinary traditions (alcapurrias, bacalaítos), Piñones faces constant pressure from tourism development, coastal erosion, and gentrification that threatens to displace the community that has maintained this land for generations.
Hurricane San Narciso (1867) and Colonial Relief Failures
Hurricane San Narciso devastated Puerto Rico on October 29, 1867, killing over 300 people and destroying thousands of homes. Spain's inadequate relief response contributed to the economic desperation and political anger that fueled the Grito de Lares uprising one year later.
El Yunque National Forest: Ecological Heritage and Colonial Land Use
El Yunque National Forest — the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System — has been protected since 1876 (under Spain) and 1903 (under the U.S.), preserving 28,000 acres of biodiversity. But its protection also represents colonial land control: the forest is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, and Puerto Ricans have limited say in its management.
U.S. Naval Blockade of Puerto Rico (1898)
During the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Navy imposed a naval blockade on Puerto Rico beginning in May 1898, cutting off the island from food imports, medical supplies, and trade, causing widespread civilian hunger and economic devastation months before the military invasion.
U.S. Military Bases in Puerto Rico: The Island as Strategic Colony
Since 1898, the U.S. military has used Puerto Rico as a strategic military platform — establishing major bases including Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Ramey Air Force Base, Fort Allen, Fort Buchanan, and the Vieques and Culebra bombing ranges. At its peak, the military controlled approximately 13% of Puerto Rico's land area. The military presence shaped the island's geography, economy, environment, and political status — making Puerto Rico a key piece of U.S. military infrastructure in the Caribbean.
Hurricane San Ciriaco (1899)
Hurricane San Ciriaco struck Puerto Rico on August 8, 1899 — just one year after the U.S. invasion — killing approximately 3,400 people and destroying the coffee economy, while the U.S. military government provided minimal relief, channeling aid toward sugar production instead.
Sugar Monoculture: How One Crop Destroyed an Economy (1900-1940)
After the 1898 invasion, American colonial policy deliberately transformed Puerto Rico from a diversified agricultural economy (coffee, tobacco, sugar, subsistence farming) into a sugar monoculture dominated by four American corporations — destroying food self-sufficiency, the Puerto Rican landowning class, and the island's economic independence.
U.S. Military Use of Culebra
From 1901 to 1975, the U.S. Navy used the island of Culebra for military exercises, displacing residents and contaminating the environment before community resistance forced the Navy's departure.
Culebra: Removal of a Community for Military Use (1901-1975)
The U.S. Navy used the island of Culebra for target practice and military exercises from 1901 to 1975, displacing residents, destroying land and marine ecosystems, and treating a Puerto Rican community as expendable — a precursor to the longer and more devastating occupation of Vieques.
Culebra: The Forgotten Bombing Range
Before Vieques became the focus of anti-military protests, the small island of Culebra (population ~1,500) endured decades of U.S. Navy bombing exercises. The Navy used Culebra and its surrounding cays for target practice from 1901 to 1975, when sustained protests by Culebra residents and Puerto Rican activists successfully forced the Navy to relocate its exercises — to Vieques. The Culebra struggle was the first successful anti-military campaign in Puerto Rico and provided the template for the later Vieques movement.
El Yunque National Forest: Colonial Control of Natural Resources
El Yunque — the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System — was designated a federal reserve in 1903, placing Puerto Rico's most important ecosystem under federal control rather than Puerto Rican authority.
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Puerto Rico
The 1918 influenza pandemic struck Puerto Rico with devastating force, killing an estimated 10,000 people — nearly 1% of the island's population — in just a few months. The colonial government's limited public health infrastructure, already strained by poverty and malnutrition, was overwhelmed, exposing the costs of colonial underdevelopment.
The San Fermín Earthquake and Tsunami (1918)
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck western Puerto Rico on October 11, 1918, generating a tsunami that devastated coastal communities and killed 116 people.
The School of Tropical Medicine and the Cornelius Rhoads Scandal (1926-1949)
A US-affiliated medical institution in Puerto Rico advanced tropical disease research while American physician Cornelius Rhoads wrote a letter in 1931 describing Puerto Ricans as subhuman and claiming to have injected patients with cancer cells.
Hurricane San Felipe II (1928): The Storm That Broke the Coffee Economy
Hurricane San Felipe II struck Puerto Rico on September 13, 1928, as a Category 5 hurricane with winds exceeding 160 mph — killing approximately 300 people, leaving 500,000 homeless (half the population), and destroying the coffee industry that had been the economic backbone of the interior highlands. The storm permanently altered Puerto Rico's economic geography, accelerating the shift from coffee to sugar and from the mountains to the coast.
Hurricane San Ciprián (1932)
Hurricane San Ciprián struck Puerto Rico on September 26, 1932, killing over 200 people and destroying 75,000 homes. Coming during the Great Depression and four years after Hurricane San Felipe II, the storm devastated the already-weakened coffee and tobacco economies and deepened Puerto Rico's dependency on federal relief.
Camp Santiago and Military Contamination of Salinas
Camp Santiago, a U.S. military training facility in Salinas, has contaminated surrounding communities with perchlorate, heavy metals, and unexploded ordnance, contributing to elevated cancer rates in one of Puerto Rico's poorest municipalities.
Caño Martín Peña: Environmental Racism and Community Resistance
The Caño Martín Peña communities — eight neighborhoods of approximately 26,000 people in San Juan built on a polluted tidal channel — represent both environmental racism (government neglect of poor, predominantly Black and mixed-race communities) and extraordinary community organizing through the Fideicomiso de la Tierra (Community Land Trust).
Puerto Rico's Electrical Grid: A History of Colonial Infrastructure
Puerto Rico's electrical grid, managed by PREPA since 1941, was designed and maintained as colonial infrastructure — centralized, fragile, and dependent on imported fossil fuels — making the island uniquely vulnerable to hurricanes and creating the conditions for the catastrophic failures of María and Fiona.
U.S. Navy occupies Vieques for weapons testing
The U.S. Navy expropriated two-thirds of Vieques island for weapons testing. For 62 years, the Navy dropped bombs containing napalm, depleted uranium, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. Cancer rates in Vieques are 27% higher than mainland Puerto Rico.
Ponce Cement Factory and CEMEX Industrial Pollution
Founded in 1941 by Antonio Ferré Bacallao, Ponce Cement Inc. became one of Puerto Rico's most important industrial operations. After CEMEX acquired it in 2002, the Mexican multinational began burning waste tires for fuel, producing nitrogen oxide emissions of approximately 1,423 tons per year. EPA ordered $1.7 million in pollution controls and $160,000 in penalties for Clean Air Act violations.
Roosevelt Roads Naval Station (1943-2004)
Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba was the largest U.S. Navy base in the world, occupying over 32,000 acres of eastern Puerto Rico for 61 years. Its closure in 2004 — linked to the closure of Vieques — left behind environmental contamination and economic disruption.
Sand Mining and Coastal Erosion in Puerto Rico
Decades of legal and illegal sand mining from Puerto Rico's rivers and beaches has accelerated coastal erosion, undermined bridges and infrastructure, destroyed habitats, and threatened communities, while enforcement of mining regulations has been chronically weak under colonial governance.
Mangrove Destruction and Coastal Ecosystem Collapse in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico has lost over half of its mangrove forests since the mid-20th century due to coastal development, dredging, and pollution. Mangroves serve as critical storm buffers, nurseries for marine life, and carbon sinks, and their destruction has increased Puerto Rico's vulnerability to hurricanes and sea-level rise.
Asbestos Contamination in Puerto Rico's Schools and Public Housing
Hundreds of Puerto Rico's public schools and public housing complexes were built with asbestos-containing materials from the 1940s through the 1970s. Decades of deferred maintenance and inadequate remediation have exposed students, residents, and workers to asbestos fibers, with the problem dramatically worsened by hurricanes that damaged building materials.
Destruction of Puerto Rico's Karst Landscape
Puerto Rico's karst limestone covers 244,285 hectares (27.5% of the island's surface), containing its most productive aquifer and highest biodiversity—1,300 species including 30 federally listed threatened species. Limestone quarrying for cement and construction has been destroying the unique mogote formations, while industrial contamination of the porous aquifer led to 41% of drinking water wells being closed by 1987.
Petrochemical Pollution on Puerto Rico's Southern Coast
Puerto Rico's southern coast, particularly the municipalities of Guayanilla, Peñuelas, and Salinas, has been heavily impacted by petrochemical industry pollution, with elevated cancer rates and respiratory diseases in communities living near refineries and chemical plants.
U.S. Government Radiation Experiments in Puerto Rico
Declassified documents and the 1994 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments confirmed that the U.S. government conducted radiation experiments on unwitting subjects during the Cold War — lending credibility to Pedro Albizu Campos's claims of being irradiated in prison.
Agent Orange Testing in Puerto Rico's Forests
Before Agent Orange was deployed in Vietnam — where it caused cancer, birth defects, and environmental devastation affecting millions — the U.S. military tested herbicidal warfare agents in Puerto Rico's tropical forests. El Yunque National Forest and other sites were used as testing grounds, exposing Puerto Rican ecosystems and nearby communities to toxic chemicals.
Barceloneta: Pharmaceutical Paradise, Environmental Sacrifice Zone
Barceloneta, a municipality on Puerto Rico's north coast, became the most concentrated pharmaceutical manufacturing zone in the world — home to plants for Abbott, Pfizer, and other major companies. While generating billions in revenue (largely tax-free under Section 936), the industry left behind severe environmental contamination: groundwater polluted with industrial chemicals, cancer rates above the national average, and multiple Superfund sites that threaten community health.
Culebra: The First Victory Against Military Colonialism (1970-1975)
The successful campaign to end U.S. Navy bombing of Culebra (a small island municipality east of Puerto Rico) in 1975 was the first major victory against military colonialism — a grassroots movement of fishermen, activists, and island residents that proved Puerto Ricans could force the U.S. military to withdraw, setting the precedent for the later Vieques campaign.
Pharmaceutical Industry Ocean Dumping and Groundwater Contamination
Between 1972 and the early 1980s, pharmaceutical companies dumped over 387,000 metric tons of industrial waste into a 500-kilometer ocean zone north of Arecibo. On land, companies used deep injection wells, sinkholes, and sprinklers to dispose of untreated liquid waste into Puerto Rico's porous limestone aquifers. By 1987, 41% of drinking water wells in the northern karst aquifer had been closed due to contamination.
Climate Change in Puerto Rico: Colonial Vulnerability on the Front Lines
Puerto Rico is one of the most climate-vulnerable places on Earth — facing stronger hurricanes, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, coral reef death, drought, heat waves, and flooding. Yet the island contributes minimally to global emissions. Climate change in Puerto Rico is a colonial justice issue: the colonized bear the consequences of the colonizer's consumption.
Coral Reef Degradation: Marine Environmental Crisis
Puerto Rico's coral reefs — among the most biodiverse marine ecosystems in the Caribbean — have lost an estimated 50-80% of living coral cover since the 1970s, due to warming oceans, sedimentation from development, pollution, and overfishing, with Hurricane María causing further devastating damage to reef systems.
Casa Pueblo: Community Solar Power and Environmental Resistance
Casa Pueblo — a community organization in Adjuntas led by Alexis Massol González — has fought against mining, protected forests, and pioneered community solar power, becoming a model of self-determination that kept the lights on during Hurricane María when the colonial power grid failed.
Superfund Sites in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico has more EPA Superfund toxic waste sites per square mile than any U.S. state, a legacy of decades of unregulated industrial operations by mainland pharmaceutical and chemical companies.
Hurricane Hugo (1989)
Hurricane Hugo struck Puerto Rico on September 18, 1989 as a Category 3 hurricane, causing approximately $1 billion in damage, killing 12 people, and leaving 28,000 homeless — foreshadowing the inadequate federal disaster response that would define Hurricane María 28 years later.
Coral Reef Destruction and Marine Ecosystem Collapse
Puerto Rico has lost over 50% of its coral reef cover since the 1970s due to climate change, pollution, overdevelopment, and military contamination, devastating marine ecosystems that support fisheries and protect coastlines from hurricane storm surges.
Hurricane Georges (1998)
Hurricane Georges struck Puerto Rico as a Category 3 hurricane on September 21, 1998, killing at least 8 people directly and causing $3.6 billion in damage, leaving 80% of the island without power and exposing the fragility of colonial infrastructure.
Vieques Civil Disobedience Campaign
After the death of David Sanes Rodríguez in 1999, thousands of Puerto Ricans engaged in civil disobedience on Vieques, with over 1,500 arrests, forcing the U.S. Navy to close its base in 2003.
The PRASA Water Crisis: Colonial Infrastructure Failure
Puerto Rico's water system — managed by PRASA (Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority) — loses approximately 60% of treated water through leaks, serves water that violates Safe Drinking Water Act standards to hundreds of thousands of residents, and represents decades of colonial infrastructure neglect.
Water Infrastructure Crisis and Contamination
Puerto Rico's water infrastructure, managed by the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), has been in chronic crisis with frequent violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, service interruptions, and contamination affecting hundreds of thousands of residents.
Ciénaga Las Cucharillas: Wetlands Under Siege
The Ciénaga Las Cucharillas — a 1,200-acre coastal wetland system in Cataño, across the bay from San Juan — is one of the most threatened ecosystems in Puerto Rico and a microcosm of the conflict between development, environmental protection, and colonial governance. The wetlands provide critical flood protection, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat, but face constant pressure from industrial, residential, and commercial development.
Water Contamination: When the Colony Can't Provide Clean Water
Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans receive water that violates federal Safe Drinking Water Act standards — from systems contaminated with industrial chemicals, agricultural runoff, and bacteria. The island's water infrastructure (managed by PRASA, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority) suffers from decades of deferred maintenance, colonial underfunding, and the cascading damage of hurricanes and earthquakes.
Climate Change: Puerto Rico on the Front Lines
Puerto Rico sits on the front lines of climate change — facing intensifying hurricanes, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, coral reef destruction, and extreme heat events. As a Caribbean island with colonial infrastructure, Puerto Rico is uniquely vulnerable: the colonial economy created the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, while the colony bears disproportionate consequences. Puerto Rico contributes negligibly to global emissions but faces existential climate threats.
Vieques Health Crisis: Cancer, Contamination, and Colonial Neglect
Multiple scientific studies have documented elevated cancer rates and other health problems among Vieques residents — a direct consequence of six decades of U.S. Navy bombing exercises (1941-2003). Studies have found cancer rates 27% higher than the Puerto Rican mainland, elevated rates of heavy metals in residents' bodies, and widespread contamination of soil and water. Despite the Navy's departure in 2003, the Superfund cleanup remains incomplete, and Viequenses continue to suffer disproportionate health burdens.
AES Coal Ash Crisis: Toxic Dumping in Peñuelas and Guayama
The AES coal-burning power plant in Guayama has produced millions of tons of toxic coal ash since 2002, dumping it in communities in Peñuelas and Guayama despite evidence of heavy metal contamination of groundwater, soil, and air, making it one of the worst environmental justice crises in Puerto Rico.
Camp García: Environmental and Health Legacy of Navy Bombing
Since the Navy's withdrawal from Vieques in 2003, the former bombing range — now a Superfund site — continues to poison the island's residents. Cancer rates remain significantly elevated, unexploded ordnance covers thousands of acres, and cleanup has been agonizingly slow.
Vieques Cancer and Health Crisis
Studies have documented cancer rates in Vieques 27% higher than the Puerto Rican mainland, linked to six decades of U.S. Navy bombing that contaminated soil and water with heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
Food Insecurity: An Island That Cannot Feed Itself
Puerto Rico imports approximately 85% of its food — one of the highest food import dependency rates in the world. This dependency is not natural but colonial: centuries of plantation monoculture destroyed diverse agriculture, the Jones Act makes food imports more expensive, and federal programs like NAP (the Nutrition Assistance Program) have created a system where it's cheaper to import mainland processed food than to grow food locally.
Food Sovereignty: Challenging Colonial Agricultural Dependency
Puerto Rico imports approximately 85% of its food — a colonial dependency created by decades of agricultural destruction — but a growing food sovereignty movement is reclaiming farmland, creating community gardens, and building the infrastructure for a decolonized food system.
The Sargassum Crisis: Toxic Seaweed Inundation of Puerto Rico's Coasts
Since 2011, Puerto Rico has experienced unprecedented mass arrivals of sargassum seaweed driven by climate change and nutrient pollution, smothering beaches, releasing toxic hydrogen sulfide gas, killing marine life, devastating coastal tourism, and overwhelming a colonial government already strained by austerity.
Water Privatization Threats: AAA and the Right to Water
Puerto Rico's water authority — the Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AAA) — serves 97% of the island's population and has been the target of repeated privatization proposals. Under PROMESA austerity, water infrastructure has deteriorated, service interruptions are common, and the FOMB has pushed for private management — following the same playbook that privatized the electrical grid through LUMA Energy.
Tropical Storm Erika (2015): Pre-María Infrastructure Warning
Tropical Storm Erika in August 2015 caused devastating flooding and mudslides in Puerto Rico, killing four people and causing $50 million in damage — a warning that the island's deteriorating infrastructure could not withstand major storms, a warning that went unheeded before María.
Hurricane Irma and María: The Double Strike of 2017
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma struck Puerto Rico as a Category 5 storm on September 6, knocking out power to 1 million people. Two weeks later, Hurricane María made direct landfall as a Category 4, destroying the entire electrical grid and causing an estimated 2,975-4,645 deaths.
Hurricane Irma: The Forgotten First Strike (2017)
Two weeks before Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico, Hurricane Irma — one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded — struck the island on September 6, 2017. While Irma's eye passed north of Puerto Rico, it still caused massive damage: over 1 million customers lost power, infrastructure was weakened, and communities were left vulnerable.
Hurricane María: Federal Response Failure
Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. The federal response was catastrophically slow and inadequate, contributing to an estimated 2,975-4,645 deaths while the Trump administration withheld billions in approved relief funds.
Guajataca Dam Crisis: Near-Failure After Hurricane María (2017)
Hurricane María caused critical damage to the Guajataca Dam in Quebradillas, forcing the emergency evacuation of 70,000 people downstream and exposing decades of deferred maintenance on Puerto Rico's aging dam infrastructure — a direct consequence of colonial fiscal constraints and austerity policies.
Diesel Generator Dependency: Toxic Air Quality After Hurricane María
After Hurricane María destroyed Puerto Rico's electrical grid, hundreds of thousands of residents relied on diesel generators for months or years, creating a public health crisis of toxic air pollution in residential neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals — disproportionately affecting low-income communities.
Solar Energy and Energy Democracy: Communities Take Power Back
After Hurricane María destroyed Puerto Rico's electrical grid, community organizations and individual residents began installing solar energy systems — declaring energy independence from the failed colonial power grid. The solar movement represents both practical resilience (surviving future hurricanes) and political resistance (rejecting dependence on PREPA/LUMA and fossil fuel imports). Organizations like Casa Pueblo have demonstrated that Puerto Rico could meet its energy needs through renewable sources.
Solar Energy Revolution: Community Power After María
After Hurricane María revealed the catastrophic failure of Puerto Rico's centralized, fossil-fuel-dependent electric grid, grassroots movements and community organizations began building distributed solar energy systems — transforming energy policy from below, despite opposition from LUMA Energy and institutional barriers.
Electric Grid Fragility: The Longest Blackout in U.S. History
Hurricane María destroyed Puerto Rico's entire electric grid in September 2017, creating the longest blackout in U.S. history — 11 months before full power restoration. The grid's fragility was the product of decades of deferred maintenance, colonial underfunding, and PREPA's corruption.
Hurricane María Excess Deaths: The 4,645 (2017-2018)
While the official death toll of Hurricane María was initially reported as 64, a landmark Harvard/GWU study estimated the true death toll at 4,645 — making it one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history and exposing the colonial government's attempt to minimize the catastrophe.
The Mental Health Crisis: Compounded Colonial Trauma
Puerto Rico faces a mental health crisis rooted in compounded colonial trauma: Hurricane María (2017), the 2020 earthquakes, COVID-19, the debt crisis and austerity, and the ongoing stress of colonial uncertainty have created widespread anxiety, depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation — while the mental health infrastructure to address these conditions has been gutted by austerity and brain drain.
Earthquake Swarm (2019-2020)
Beginning in December 2019, a series of earthquakes struck southwestern Puerto Rico, including a magnitude 6.4 quake on January 7, 2020 that killed one person, destroyed hundreds of homes, and left thousands displaced — while recovery from Hurricane María was still incomplete.
Earthquake Swarm: Compounding Disaster (2019-2020)
Beginning in December 2019, a series of earthquakes — including a 6.4 magnitude quake on January 7, 2020 — struck southwestern Puerto Rico, destroying homes, schools, and infrastructure in communities still recovering from Hurricane María, exposing how colonial underfunding leaves buildings unsafe.
Renewable Energy Potential: Solar Independence vs. Colonial Grid
Puerto Rico receives among the highest solar radiation in U.S. territory and has legislated a 100% renewable energy target by 2050 — yet remains dependent on imported fossil fuels for 97% of electricity, a dependency that benefits fuel importers and LUMA Energy while keeping Puerto Ricans vulnerable to outages.
The 2020 Earthquakes: When the Ground Joined the Storm
In January 2020, a series of powerful earthquakes — the largest a 6.4 magnitude on January 7 — struck southwestern Puerto Rico, destroying over 8,000 structures, leaving thousands homeless, and demonstrating that the island's infrastructure was vulnerable not only to hurricanes but to seismic events. The earthquakes hit communities still recovering from Hurricane María, compounding trauma and displacement.
COVID-19 in Puerto Rico: Pandemic in the Colony
The COVID-19 pandemic hit Puerto Rico as the island was still recovering from Hurricane María (2017), the earthquakes (2020), and under PROMESA austerity. Puerto Rico's colonial status shaped every aspect of the pandemic response: an already-fragile healthcare system, dependence on federal decisions made without Puerto Rican input, Jones Act-inflated supply costs, and an aging population with high rates of chronic disease made the pandemic particularly devastating.
Hurricane Fiona (2022)
Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022 as a Category 1 hurricane, causing island-wide power outages just five years after Hurricane María and raising questions about the billions spent on grid recovery under LUMA Energy.