A year after Maria, the stories of Puerto Rico residents who lived through the storm continue to resonate. We spoke with women on the island who provided a glimpse of life in the aftermath of Maria. One woman’s story speaks to the pain of climate displacement; another’s focuses on how schools have become recovery centers; and a women-run solar-powered kitchen shows how Puerto Ricans are innovating to move the island forward.
Solar Kitchen
In Puerto Rico, when entire communities were left without food and water for months, women showed up. Women-run and solar-powered El Centro De Apoyo Muyo kitchen offered free meals to families after the hurricane. “When we get together, we survive, and I think this community won’t forget that lesson.” Climate change impacts are not equal, and they’re not general neutral.
Education
When we met Sarah Reyes, local school director, she was working day and night so Puerto Ricans could return home and their children could once again attend school. “We know that with climate change, things are happening in places where they had never happened. Maria has been a great teacher.”
Climate Displacement
In the midst of a climate crisis like Hurricane Maria, up and leaving can prove near impossible. Elizabeth Chapman’s story offers a peek at climate displacement that’s becoming more common across the globe. As climate disruption worsens, evacuation presents various physical, emotional and logistical challenges.
Maria’s Mourning Veil
"On the first anniversary of the worst disaster in Puerto Rico’s history, the island is still covered by Hurricane Maria’s mourning veil,” says Sierra Club associate communications director Javier Sierra. “[Last month] Puerto Rico finally announced the storm’s true death toll—2,975 lives, 50 times higher than originally reported.”
Read Javier's column and find out how this could be so.
Join #TeamPuertoRico and Demand Action to Protect the Island from Climate Change!
Join #TeamPuertoRico to lift up stories from the island and demand action from federal decision makers who are ready to watch Puerto Rico drown as climate change worsens the impact of extreme weather.
One year has passed since Hurricanes Maria and Irma ravaged Puerto Rico, and the island is not ready for the next disaster. Thousands of lives were lost to preventable, senseless deaths in the hurricanes. Now the island is under threat from new hurricanes and Trump just robbed over $10 million from FEMA to fund his immigrant detention camps.
Without a reliable clean energy grid, Puerto Rico is not safe. Every day thousands of people on the island lose access to power as the unreliable, decrepit grid flickers on and off. Imagine what will happen during the next hurricane: just like last time, hospitals will go dark and vulnerable people will die for lack of access to basic health care like oxygen and dialysis. Until Puerto Rico builds a reliable, distributed clean energy grid, millions of lives will be at risk every hurricane season.