Puerto Rico

A new project reveals the extent of preventable deaths in the wake of the 2017 hurricane.

• By David M. Perry

Pacific Standard spoke with Blanca Cuevas, the director of a reproductive health non-profit based on the island.

• By Caitlin Cruz

Three organizations collected reports from Puerto Ricans who believed their loved ones died as a result of Hurricane Maria but whose death certificates didn't indicate storm conditions as a cause of death.

• By Francie Diep

This new death toll is more than twice as high as the estimates the Puerto Rican government released earlier this month.

• By Jack Herrera

For months, Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rosselló refused to admit his government might have undercounted—and this is not the only spurious claim made since the disaster.

• By Emily Moon

A federal judge issued an order on Wednesday that will prevent hundreds of Puerto Rican families who fled from Hurricane Maria from being evicted from hotels and motels across the United States—at least until August 31st.

• By Jack Herrera

On the 120th anniversary of America's colonization of the island, a group of senators introduced a bill to cancel Puerto Rico's debt obligations.

• By Jack Herrera

Hurricane Beryl, currently a Category 1 storm with top wind speeds of 80 miles per hour, is expected to make landfall by late Sunday night.

• By Kate Wheeling

A federal judge ruled Tuesday to extend a Federal Emergency Management Agency program providing temporary housing to Puerto Ricans lacking shelter in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

• By Kate Wheeling

The records indicate 1,427 more people died on the island in the months following the hurricane than would be expected in a normal year.

• By Francie Diep

Hurricane Maria is officially the deadliest storm in modern U.S. history—yet it received just a fraction of the aid given to Houston.

• By Jared Keller

Caribbean countries must transform their energy systems by creating new, greener sources of power.

• By Masaō Ashtine

Teachers participate in a one-day strike against the government's privatization drive in public education, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 19th, 2018.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is a small town with a long history of integrating Puerto Rican families, but this most recent influx is putting its resources to the test.

• By Martín Echenique

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed the package, which allocates $64 million to immediate rebuilding efforts to restore existing communications networks in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

• By Candace Butera

Despite Whitefish's small size, the energy company was hired to help restore electrical service to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

• By Candace Butera

Ricardo A. Rosselló now admits that the toll "may be higher than the official count certified to date."

• By Kate Wheeling

This is the first time FEMA has offered an air breach.

• By Emily Moon

Even if you ignore the obvious moral necessity for the government to assist Puerto Rico, the government should not ignore its economic and military necessity.

• By Lillian Bobea

How critical disaster studies can teach us what went wrong in Puerto Rico.

• By David M. Perry

Puerto Rico's health crisis was 100 years in the making.

• By Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza

For decades, Puerto Rico had been suffering the slow but certain violence of modern colonial capitalism.

• By Frances Negrón-Muntaner

The deepening humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico reveals a disaster response that is categorically different from the actions taken in the wake of hurricanes that struck the continental U.S. recently.

• By Kriston Capps

While the hurricane's strength is likely to fluctuate, Maria is expected to pummel Puerto Rico as a Category 4 or 5 storm—the first storm of that strength to hit the island in 85 years.

• By Kate Wheeling