Early in the morning on September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm with winds up to 155 miles per hour, made landfall on the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. The storm cut a destructive path across the entire island. It flattened buildings, tossed cars and caused waist-deep flooding in the capital, San Juan.
By the time the winds and rain began to diminish, the island’s power grid and communications networks were smashed. About 80 percent of agricultural crops were lost. Fixing all the damage would cost more than $111 billion. Cleanup and restoration are still ongoing.
Watching the news from hundreds of miles away in North Carolina, where I live, I was not thinking about the horrifying statistics. I’d been born in Puerto Rico, and most of my relatives still live in a small town on the southern coast, not far from where Maria had made landfall. I feared for their lives.
Every year brings hurricanes to the Atlantic Ocean. The worst storms make headlines, then are forgotten.
