This edited volume offers 13 chapters by contributing authors from a range of social science disciplines exposing the impact of one of the deadliest natural disasters in US history on Puerto Ricans, both in the commonwealth and stateside. The early chapters describe the political, economic, demographic, and social conditions prevailing on the island when the hurricane made landfall in 2017. Drawing on a previous study by the editors, contributors cite the significant outmigration, a shrinking and aging population, decaying infrastructure, increasing unemployment, and a bankrupt government with federal restrictions on its fiscal autonomy. These crisis conditions created a foundation for a devastatingly slow disaster response to a storm that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and left the majority of island residents without power, running water, food, and medicines for more than a month. In addition to examining various disaster recovery efforts, individual chapters address the hurricane's impact on employment, health, civic engagement, migration patterns, and artistic expression. Indeed, as readers will learn, the impact is ongoing. The volume ends by posing new questions about the hurricane's long-term demographic impact on the island and the political implications of the migration of Puerto Ricans back to the island in Maria’s wake. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty.

Choice Reviews

Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico provides one of the most comprehensive, clear and rigorous analysis of the impact of hurricane Maria on the lives of Puerto Ricans.

Unlike similar volumes, this collection of both well established and younger scholars provides welcomed, alternative, serious, well documented, and empirically substantiated reflections on the Puerto Rican experience in the aftermath of a series of catastrophic events amplified by hurricane Maria.

Charles R. Venator-Santiago, University of Connecticut

Hurricane María was a natural disaster that turned into a humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico as a result of antecedent conditions and exacerbated by the post-disaster response. Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico: Disaster, Vulnerability and Resilience provides a succinct but detailed broad-scope account and analyses of such antecedent conditions, consequences of the storm and human action, and responses, both inadequate and successful. It also offers useful and actionable policy recommendations from keen observers and practitioners of the Puerto Rican experience. This volume serves as required reference for the present Puerto Rican reality and those engaged in disaster attenuation and management.

Carlos Vargas-Ramos, Columbia University