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I am sorry to say that writing about Puerto Rico’s failure to recover from Hurricane Maria has become an annual event, and much of what we have covered involves President Donald Trump’s role during both of his terms in office.
On Sept. 27, 2017, we created a community group here at Daily Kos called S.O.S. Puerto Rico, which I invite you to join.
Our first post was titled “Puerto Rico S.O.S: Trump is lying, PR is crying and unless you help—more Americans will be dying.”
We’ve followed up each year with posts like these:
The 8th anniversary of Maria has garnered attention from mainstream media because of Bad Bunny’s residency on the island, with numerous stories like this one from Danica Coto at AP, titled “Bad Bunny says goodbye to Puerto Rico in one final concert after a historic residency”:
‘We are still here’
Saturday marked the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which slammed into Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 20, 2017.
An estimated 2,975 people died in the sweltering aftermath of the storm that razed the island’s electric grid, leaving some communities without power for up to a year. Anger and frustration over the pace of reconstruction continues to simmer as chronic power outages persist.
In a Sept. 11 report, the U.S. Office of Inspector General found that 92% of approved and obligated projects related to Puerto Rico’s crumbling grid were incomplete, and that $3.7 billion of available funds had not been obligated.
“Over seven years after Hurricane Maria, FEMA does not know when Puerto Rico’s electrical grid will be completely rebuilt. The grid remains unstable, inadequate, and vulnerable to interruptions,” the report stated.
On Saturday, the number of estimated deaths were imprinted on the back of T-shirts and written on Puerto Rican flags that the crowd waved into the air.
“We are still emotional and carry the trauma of having gone through a horrible thing,” said Marta Amaral, 61, who attended Saturday’s concert. “Beyond the sadness and remembering the negativity of having gone through a traumatic event, this is a celebration that we are still here, standing.”
UPI’s retrospective article was titled “On This Day: Hurricane Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico.”
The article starts by noting that “On Sept. 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm. The storm left the entire island without power and nearly 3,000 people dead over the next several months.”
Democratic Congress members were among others who posted eight years later:
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On the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, we grieve with all Puerto Ricans who experienced great tragedy and loss 8 years ago. After watching in terror as neglect and mismanagement claimed lives and worsened the disaster, #IL03 became home to many displaced families.
— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@ramirez.house.gov) September 20, 2025 at 11:01 AM
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Today is the 8th anniversary of the arrival of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. As the island & its people struggle to build a more just & democratic enitity, I believe the spirits of the thousands who perished during & after the storm accompany them every step of the way.
— Michael Deibert (@michaeldeibert.bsky.social) September 20, 2025 at 8:04 AM
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Eight years after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still rebuilding.
As family and friends mourn the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the storm, we must continue pushing for investment, infrastructure, and support for the millions of Americans in Puerto Rico.
— Rep. Dan Goldman (@repdangoldman.bsky.social) September 20, 2025 at 1:41 PM
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It's been 8 years since Hurricane Maria hit PR. Since then, reconstruction has been selective and gentrified. Tarps still cover roofs in remote and poor areas, our power system is a joke and our coastlines are being taken over by billionaire investors.
Madre de Dios, digital painting 2018
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— DIO (@danielirizarri.bsky.social) September 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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#OnThisDay Sep 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria a Category 5 storm struck Puerto Rico, causing catastrophic damage & leaving thousands without power, water, or lives. The disaster exposed infrastructure weaknesses & political failures, highlighting the urgent need for accountability & effective governance.
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— The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (@centropr.bsky.social) September 20, 2025 at 11:02 AM
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This 23-hour radar loop shows Category 5 Hurricane Maria approaching Puerto Rico on September 19-20, 2017. It made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane ~6am on the 20th, but right around that time, the winds in the outer eyewall obliterated the radar and the loop ends. Maria devasted the entire island
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— Brian McNoldy (@bmcnoldy.bsky.social) September 19, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Lest we forget, Puerto Rico was also hit by Hurricane Fiona:
In 2024, Scott Waldman wrote “Trump OMB pick slowed aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria” for energy & environment news:
Russell Vought used his powerful perch in President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration to slow down billions of dollars in disaster aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island in 2017. At the time, much of the island remained without power and tens of thousands of Americans were living under tarps.
Now, Vought is set to return as director of the Office of Management and Budget if the Senate confirms him.
Vought would have vast control over federal spending under Trump, who while campaigning vowed to withhold disaster aid to force a Democratic governor to bend to his political will.
“This is the worst-case scenario because it was hard enough the first time around,” said Erica González Martínez, director of Power 4 Puerto Rico, a coalition of Puerto Rican diaspora groups and an organizer of protests over the delayed disaster aid.
“We’ve seen over and over again the standing that Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans have when it comes to Trump and his administration,” Martínez said, referring to Trump’s and Vought’s response to hurricanes Maria and Irma and to earthquakes that rocked the island in late 2019 and early 2020.
Charlotte Gossett Navarro, chief director for Puerto Rico at the Hispanic Federation, fears Trump and Vought will again take steps to delay the U.S. territory’s recovery.
“Under the Trump administration, it was particularly antagonistic, and its view of Puerto Rico was very negative,” Navarro said. “You constantly felt like you were battling with someone who wants to see you fail.”
In 2017 John Bowdon at The Hill wrote “Watchdog blames Puerto Rico hurricane relief delays on Trump-era bureaucracy”:
Officials with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of the Inspector General are blaming the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under former President Trump for delays that held up desperately needed relief aid to Puerto Rico following two devastating hurricanes in 2017.
In a report released Thursday, HUD’s top watchdog detailed how OMB officials required an unprecedented interagency review process for any disaster relief funds that were disbursed to the island. In addition, the agency demanded other concessions from Puerto Rico’s government that hampered access to relief funds, according to the Post, including a suspension of its minimum wage law for employees of federal contractors.
The numerous demands caused friction between the agencies, the newspaper noted, leading former HUD Deputy Secretary Brian Montgomery to express HUD’s “mounting concerns and frustrations” to then-acting OMB Director Russell Vought about “HUD’s inability to make progress” due to OMB regulations.
Those regulations amounted to holding disaster relief funds “hostage” as millions of people on the island went without power or reliable drinking water for months, Montgomery added, according to the report.
Request for comment from HUD and OMB on the report were not immediately returned. Former top HUD officials, including ex-Secretary Ben Carson, refused to comply with the investigation, according to The Washington Post.
More recently we’ve been apprised of court cases involving climate issues on the island:
Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article titled “Unusual Climate case Accusing Oil Giants of Racketeering Is Dismissed”:
An unusual lawsuit seeking to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for the hurricane devastation in Puerto Rico in 2017 has been dismissed by a judge. The case had accused the companies of racketeering, a claim more commonly used against organized crime.
But the ruling left open the door for a partial appeal, which the plaintiffs — dozens of cities and towns scattered across the archipelago — said they intended to file.
“We will appeal this decision, and as these climate cases move to the higher courts, we are confident they will deliver justice for Puerto Rico,” said Marc Grossman, an attorney at the firm Milberg who represents the municipalities.
Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll of the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico ruled that the lawsuit was prohibited by a four-year statute of limitations, since the storms occurred in 2017 but the case wasn’t filed until 2022. “Plaintiffs were not diligent” in filing on time, the judge wrote in the 125-page ruling. The plaintiffs said they disputed that interpretation of the statute of limitations, citing a recommendation by a different judge.
The on-island struggle continues.
Periodism Investigativo delved in to the problems in an article titled “Government Dysfunction and LUMA’s Infighting Stall Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Recovery”:
Puerto Rico’s Energy Czar blames LUMA Energy, the private operator of the power grid, for failing to manage federal funds. The company has been embroiled in an internal dispute with one of its main contractors while also pointing the finger at the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) for neglecting maintenance. Meanwhile, the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico says no one was in charge or coordinating agencies under former Governor Pedro Pierluisi’s administration. The result: no one is taking responsibility for the delays and inefficiencies in rebuilding the electrical grid, eight years after Hurricane Maria.
When LUMA competed for the privatization contract to run Puerto Rico’s grid, which it won in 2020, it touted its expertise in handling federal funds through its partner, Innovative Emergency Management (now IEM International). But once the deal was secured, conflicts quickly erupted between the two.
“For us, it is unacceptable that they can’t even reach an agreement among themselves,” said Puerto Rico’s Energy Czar, engineer Josué Colón, in an interview with the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI). “We told them, ‘No, no, you have to resolve this. You can’t keep getting stuck in these disputes.’”
The infighting disrupted the disbursement of funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which had announced the most significant allocation ever made under its Public Assistance program following a disaster. The conflict further delayed the reconstruction of Puerto Rico’s power grid after Hurricane Maria.
In June 2024, the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau also raised concerns about IEM’s unclear role in managing federal funds, even though that was supposed to be its primary responsibility. Regulators warned that LUMA had not explained why projects were being submitted late to FEMA.
“LUMA ignored IEM,” Colón explained. “LUMA wasn’t following their recommendations or advice on how to handle project development for FEMA.”
Along with Puerto Rico’s Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency (COR3) and the Financial Oversight and Management Board, officials had to hold “multiple meetings” to force LUMA to resolve its internal disputes. “Now they claim the issues have been resolved and they’re working together. We’ll see,” Colón added.
Rachel Harrison at NYU News takes a look at health care issues in “‘Often Forgotten’: How US Hurricane Relief and Health Care Policies Leave Puerto Rico Behind”:
Federal policies concerning disaster response, Medicaid, and political power are harming public health in the territory, according to a new analysis from the NYU School of Global Public Health
In the span of a few short years, the residents of Puerto Rico endured a series of devastating storms—including Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Fiona—and were faced with hundreds of earthquakes. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, stressing the island’s health care infrastructure when it was already compromised.
“Puerto Rico has experienced multiple, compounding disasters in recent years. It’s been a recipe for health care challenges, to say the least,” said Anna-Michelle McSorley, a postdoctoral associate at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the NYU Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice & Public Health.
In an article published in the American Journal of Public Health, McSorley and her colleagues describe how federal policies treat the “often-forgotten US territory of Puerto Rico” differently than the 50 states. As a result, these policies exacerbate existing health disparities in the territory.
The researchers focus on three key policy differences that put the health of Puerto Ricans at a disadvantage: unequal disaster response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the lack of parity in Medicaid funding, and Puerto Rico’s limited political power.
[...]
How has the US response to natural disasters in Puerto Rico hampered recovery?
In the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017, FEMA provided funding to the territory. But a 2019 study looked at how much aid was sent in the days after, and Puerto Rico received significantly less than Texas and Florida, which had also been impacted by major hurricanes in that same year. Moreover, the federal government did an internal investigation and found that FEMA mismanaged about $257 million in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
But if we dig a little deeper to look at policies that apply to Puerto Rico distinctly, we can also look at the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, a federal law that regulates how cargo is transported by sea and requires Puerto Rico to import resources on US ships. As a territory, Puerto Rico can't independently negotiate with other countries, so that restricts how resources can come in. It also increases the cost of nearly every product you can imagine, especially food, because of tariffs.
That policy creates an additional level of burden. Even if other governments were trying to figure out how to provide support after a natural disaster, it would need to happen by way of the US—which during the time of Hurricane Maria was also navigating several other natural disasters within the contiguous United States.
I don’t look forward to writing about the state of affairs nine years after Maria next year. Sadly, given both the U.S. government’s antipathy toward Puerto Rico and the conciliatory Republican government currently in power on the island, I can predict I’ll be doing so again in September 2026.
Please join me in the comments section below for more, and for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.
