1/6/2023 0 Comments Hurricane maria![]() ![]() In a classic case of gentrification, such arrivals have been displacing local Puerto Ricans who can’t afford the price hikes. Many more outside investors now live on the island and take advantage of generous tax breaks, fueling soaring property prices. It created a fertile market for investors snapping up bargain houses and establishing real estate businesses offering short-term rentals or individuals buying second homes to make the most of the paradise island, but popping back to their mainland homes every time a hurricane bears down. “Immediately after the hurricane, property prices decreased because there wasn’t any power or water, there were severe impacts and homes were damaged.” “This really spiked after Hurricane Maria,” said Raúl Santiago-Bartolomei, an assistant professor at the graduate school of planning at UPR. Many families moving to places with vibrant Puerto Rican communities, such as the Orlando area, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, leave behind for sale signs on their homes. For a family like Colón and Cruz, with two children still in school, the options for a better education in Puerto Rico became slimmer. On top of jobs being lost, the same year Maria hit, the island’s government ordered about 180 schools to shutter. “Every time there’s a natural disaster, there’s going to be displacement,” said Hernando Mattei, a demography professor at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) school of medicine. For some it’s likely to be the last straw. Too many are still without power and water and the southern municipalities of Puerto Rico were hit the hardest. Category 1 Fiona was less deadly and damaging but still grim, especially for poorer areas. Thousands died after Hurricane Maria and thousands were still living under tarps five years later. Many now wonder whether Fiona will drive yet another wave of Puerto Ricans to the US mainland, perhaps to join the almost three-quarters of million of their fellows living in New York, including Colón and Cruz. Maria, also, came just two weeks after category 5 Hurricane Irma, exacerbating the havoc. The island’s population declined almost 12% between 20, according to the US Census Bureau, and a third of that drop occurred the year after Hurricane Maria. ![]() Puerto Rico hadn’t recovered from Maria, let alone the other problems, when Hurricane Fiona hit last month, causing power cuts across a faulty grid, more broken infrastructure, chaos, hunger and death, with Joe Biden admitting a history of inadequate assistance and local government once again turning to austerity measures. Hurricanes in 2017, earthquakes and a pandemic in 2020 – all during the Trump administration – now another hurricane, against a backdrop of the climate crisis and federal neglect. The couple are typical examples of a stark reality many Puerto Ricans face on the island that’s contributing to a steady exodus of youth and talent that only accelerates every time another catastrophe strikes and batters the essentially bankrupt economy. Later, Cruz, too, lost his job in a lending company in Puerto Rico amid a sharp decline in loan applications after the hurricane, as recovery faltered. ![]() “I look back and I have no idea how I did that.” “Those were dark and difficult days for me because I had to be apart from my husband and children,” Colón said. So two months after that storm, she packed her bags, moved to New York, and waited for her husband and children to follow after her kids finished the school year. She asked to be transferred to another store, and received an offer in New York – making considerably more money than on the island. Colón and Cruz moved to New York City after the category 5 Maria decimated the island and left them without a jobs.Ĭolón, 40, worked at the Saks Fifth Avenue in San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, but the storm ruined it and it closed. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |