Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico\'s emergency management

Introduction
Hurricane Maria was the strongest hurricane to strike Puerto Rico in nearly a hundred years when it made landfall on the tiny island state in September of 2017 (Amnesty International, 2018). Maria followed upon the heels of Hurricane Irma, which had struck the island only a mere matter of weeks before. Nearly 3000 died as a result, according to Puerto Rico’s Governor and tens of thousands of people were displaced and forced to take up temporary shelter that gradually took on a character of permanence as the island struggled to cope with the devastation of the Category 4 hurricane (Amnesty International, 2018). Losses were estimated at some $90 billion. The fact that Puerto Rico was still reeling from the damages caused by Irma, which hit on September 6th, meant that local organizations were ill-prepared to cope with a second larger hurricane on September 20th. Irma had already “caused the collapse of the electric power system and significant infrastructure damage in the northeast region of Puerto Rico”—and power had not yet been fully restored when Maria landed (de Arzola, 2018, p. 477). While Irma had spared the southwestern part of the Island, Maria left not stretch of land unscathed: the devastation was total. 150 mph winds slammed into the island and tore across it completely. Radar, weather stations, cell phone towers, and electrical power were all wiped out (de Arzola, 2018). Only a single radio tower remained, but in order to use it individuals had to wend their way to the tower itself. Drinking water was in scarce supply, roads were obstructed by debris, flooding made other areas inaccessible, and hospitals were overwhelmed (de Arzola, 2018). It was in this environment that Puerto Rico’s Emergency Management had to act. This paper will discuss the preparation, planning and execution of Puerto Rico’s response and show where the island failed and where it succeeded.
Preparedness
The Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency only had in place a very general emergency response plan in the case of hurricanes. The general response plan essentially served as a guide for various organizations and agencies in terms of what they needed to do in the event of a hurricane. It did not list specific steps or detailed instructions on action items or how responses should proceed, in what order, who should lead, how the overall response should be organized, and so on. It was a plan that essentially was not a plan (Florido, 2018).
Hospitals in Puerto Rico, for example, were used to responding to hurricanes—just not to ones the size and force of Maria. Though they struggled in terms of resources, hospital personnel were all trained in what to do and how to proceed: Southwestern Regional Academic Medical Center (SW-RAMC), a nonprofit organization created in 2006 under Puerto Rico State Law had been training hospital staff, medical students and residents on emergency responsiveness. As de Arzola (2018) notes, “before Hurricane Maria, hospitals and their residency programs followed emergency preparedness protocols that included reducing the number of patients, ensuring adequacy of supplies, and formulating contingency plans for staff to cover hospital services during the storm” (p. 478). The hospitals were prepared with generators and personnel who understood what to do in the wake of the hurricane. Most of the residents were able to get to their facilities to work after the hurricane, though some of them had completely lost their homes. A leadership team was on hand to monitor the recovery, with meetings taking place every 6 hours until electricity was restored, and then meetings were held daily (de Arzola, 2018). Members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard, and nongovernmental organizations met with the health coalition that was established, which “enhanced communication among agencies, allowed prioritization of areas of need, and ensured that southwest Puerto Rico was adequately served by all agencies” (de Arzola, 2018, p. 479). This is one example of how Puerto Rico was prepared and followed the plan accordingly.
Another example is the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement (PHEP) Program that had been in place since 2001. This program was designed to place a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) agent on-site to help respond to emergencies and prevent the outbreak of infectious diseases. In response to Maria, this plan was implemented accordingly and followed: “The CDC field scientist, alongside local staff, inspected potential vaccination sites, assessed their power needs, and worked to make them operational. As a result, more than 25 additional vaccination sites could provide services, saving countless lives” (CDC, 2019). Thanks to the planning of the CDC and local staff in Puerto Rico, the spread of disease in the wake of Maria was addressed in accordance with preparations made.
Internal and External Reactions
At the governmental level, the emergency planning and preparation was mainly inadequate and ill-formed. The internal reactions to the hurricane were unhelpful as political squabbling made for poor leadership and ineffective response. It was generally left up to individual agencies and organizations to prepare and act on their own plans, and so in individual spheres—such as in health care—there was some organization, but beyond that the response, internally, was hampered by disorganization at the upper levels of governance. For example, there was little coordination among local politicians, and even externally, with help coming from the U.S., there were many criticisms. FEMA for instance was criticized for its response to Maria, even though FEMA had been there ahead of time helping to provide as much help as possible to an island already suffering from one hurricane two weeks earlier. FEMA argued in its defense that local politicians were ineffective at leading and cooperating because they were unwilling to collaborate with other parties and rivals (Achenbach & Hernandez, 2017). Another issue was that supplies from the U.S. could not be easily shipped from the U.S. to Puerto Rico to help address the resources issue because of a one hundred year old law known as the Jones Act. The Jones Act made it illegal for ships leaving a U.S. port to dock at another U.S. port without stopping anywhere in between unless those shops were American-crewed, American-made and sailing under the American flag (McMahon, 2018). A ship that left a U.S. port and could easily reach Puerto Rico quickly relieving it of its resource problem could not actually make the journey because most ships today are not American-made, American-crewed, or flying an American flag. Thus, resources were limited because of old legislation, which only worsened the impact of the hurricane on Puerto Rico and limited the amount of supplies it could receive. This was an example of poor planning by legislators: there were hundreds of ships that could have helped—but under the Jones Act they were powerless to actually do anything for the Puerto Rican people.
The U.S. Marines and Coast Guard did arrive to help open ports while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked on getting the power grid back online—though after 3 months still half of Puerto Rico was without power. Meals, tarps, and water were all delivered by the U.S. government, indicating the extent to which Puerto Rico was reliant on external assistance. Its infrastructure had been totally destroyed and less than 10 percent of its roads were navigable (Achenbach & Hernandez, 2017; Amnesty International, 2018).
Analysis
How Well the Disaster was Handled
Considering the circumstances, the disaster was handled reasonably well—though of course there are always going to be issues in this kind of disaster response. The main problem was a lack of functionality, due to both native governance and to the overall ability of a spirit of mission to take root. This was another case, much like that of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where individual agencies and organizations like the U.S. Coast Guard excelled where larger organizations like FEMA failed to respond (Samaan & Verneuil, 2008). The SW-RAMC and the PHEP were able to function relatively well, while the Governor was relatively missing as a leader throughout the ordeal. The reason was simple: the SW-RAMC and the PHEP had plans in place and had been trained on how to respond. Staff and resources (such as generators—though in limited supply—and vaccines) were available to help the teams perform their duties as outlined in their preparation plans. In terms of getting roads cleared, getting power up and running, and getting water, food and shelter to the people, the Governor had to rely on external support. This is partly understandable because the island’s crops and entire system of agriculture was destroyed. Flooding was an issue as well. However, the island really had not had any overall plan in place and still did not bother developing one even after the hurricane, which incensed many locals because the government had promised that it would develop a more adequate emergency response plan for future instances such as this one (Florido, 2018).
Overall the disaster was handled as best as could be imagined since it really mainly required the support of external forces, from the U.S. Coast Guard to the Army Corps of Engineers. However, those internal forces that were prepared did do well to execute their plans. What could have been done better, obviously, was the amount of organization and planning put in place by the Governor: there was virtually nothing prepared ahead of time. As Acevedo (2018) notes, “island officials had no written, updated agency crisis and emergency risk communication plans in place prior to the storm.” The local government provided no clear, consistent or effective communications to the public after the hurricane struck, which greatly diminished the government’s trustworthiness and credibility among the islanders (Acevedo, 2018). There was bad reporting by government officials, who were either misinformed about the reality of the situation in some towns or were deliberately trying to mislead the public in an attempt to make it seem as though the island was recovering quickly. For example, a government report would go out over the radio that power had been restored to a certain town, and then callers from that town would report to the radio stations and say, “I live here, and there is no power so stop spreading lies” (Acevedo, 2018). The same problems in miscommunication regarding relief efforts and the total death count occurred over and over, which only led to more confusion (Acevedo, 2018).
There was very little access to clean water, food, or energy and plans could have been better put in place to ensure that access to all of these essentials would be available. Shelter was in short supply and infrastructure was weak. But Irma had already caused considerable and extensive damage. The island was already in a weakened position when Maria struck—as though it were having to start the race to respond from more than two steps back. But that is not really an excuse for the Puerto Rican government. It should have been more prepared; it should have had a plan in place; and it should have had supplies ready for such a scenario. None of those things were there and the island suffered considerably, having to rely on external support, which was in its own way difficult to count on for reasons such as the Jones Act and the fact that FEMA was not effective in working with local agencies to be more organized.
Economic Impact
The economic impact was extensive. Hurricane Maria is one of the costliest hurricanes to ever strike in the Atlantic, with the cost estimated at $90 billion, which makes it the second most expensive hurricane in the Atlantic in modern history. Incidentally, Hurricane Irma, which struck two weeks earlier, is ranked fifth in cost all-time sitting at $52 billion. This should give a sense of exactly how wrong-footed and ill-prepared Puerto Rico was to handle Maria when it was still basically reeling from Irma. Reeling may not even be an adequate word to describe the state of Puerto Rico after Irma. It would probably be closer to say that Puerto Rico had already been knocked out of the fight when Irma struck and here came Maria for the second round.
Because Maria totally destroyed Puerto Rico’s agricultural industry, completely wiping out the island’s main crops, which would take years just for a small percentage to grow back, its economic impact was really quite severe and it required additional bailouts from the U.S. government just to stay afloat. Pharmaceutical manufacturing also had to be halted in Puerto Rico. Drug manufacturing for the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. is the island’s biggest industry, accounting for 72% of all exports, and after the hurricane, it all had to be stopped. Some 50 pharmaceutical plants on the island had to be shut down (Bomey, 2017). The reason for this was that the people who worked there simply could not get to work: their homes had been destroyed, and they were dealing with homelessness, sickness and death all around them. It was a major calamity and it was not a case of getting back to business, even months after the hurricane.
Where Things Stand Now
Since the hurricane, things have not much improved. The Governor promised to provide a preparation plan to the public to avoid such future catastrophes—but even after a year, the Governor had not yet supplied that plan and had to be sued in order to turn over what “plan” he and his team had developed. What they turned over was a major embarrassment for the governor and showed that nothing at all or at least nothing realistic had been done to address the lack of preparation. It was all more political posturing and no actual responsibility-taking or demonstration of accountability (Florido, 2018). No new laws have been enacted and no new plans or policies have been put into place in spite of the Governor’s promises that they would come. The only subsequent events that have transpired has been additional money being given to the island by the Trump Administration to ensure that it could continue to function at a minimal level. Yet people are still living in temporary shelters, even going on two years after the hurricane. It is as though the old way of life that existed prior to September 2017 is gone and is not coming back. Cruise lines have reopened their destination tourism to the region, but there is no real infrastructure in place to receive tourists beyond the immediate beaches (Amnesty International, 2018).
Public Relations Impact
The public relations impact of the hurricane was itself a disaster. The government lost all accountability and showed no transparency even in the face of the disaster, which is what FEMA lamented when it tried to help the local government and organize an effective response (Achenbach & Hernandez, 2017). The individual stakeholders at the local level of government were two divided in spirit to really bring an effective message to the public or to show any sort of interest in truth. They were pre-occupied with local party politics and petty squabbling and thus contradictory stories were rampant and the flow of communication, mainly because of a destroyed communications infrastructure, was not facilitated at all by the pettiness of local players.
The kind of communications that went out to the public were typically misinformed or deliberately misleading, with reports trying to inform the public that the devastation was not as bad as seemed and that work was underway to restore power when no such thing was true. The government released communications about power being restored in towns where power was still out, and the point of these misleading PR stunts was to help restore morale and give the people the false hope that things were improving quickly—but people instead quickly saw through this ruse as their situations did not improve after days, weeks and months of now power.
Cultural and Resource Issues
One of the main reasons for the failure of an adequate emergency plan and response to the Hurricane Maria was simply that the culture in Puerto Rico was not one in which planning and foresight was deemed as particularly essential. The island had never suffered such a one-two blow as what was delivered by Irma and then Maria two weeks later. Just dealing with Irma was a big enough problem, but Maria simply kicked the legs out from under the island and there was little the people could do. It was limited in terms of natural resources and its culture was really one in which the people were more inclined to simply accept their circumstances and roll with the punches, bad as they may be, than plan ahead, put aside political differences, and figure things out. Only those organizations like the ones in the health care community that were informed by a different culture showed any sense of preparedness.
As Samaan and Verneuil (2008) pointed out in their study of Katrina, the spirit of mission is really what is needed in order for an organization or agency to respond effectively to a disaster of this scope. That spirit is one that has to be developed and nurtured overtime, which is why the U.S. Coast Guard was so effective at delivering a solid response in New Orleans: it had created a solid culture and a solid spirit of mission among its personnel. This spirit is what was missing locally among the people in charge of running Puerto Rico.
Conclusion
When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017 it essentially destroyed the island’s ability to function in any structural way. Homes, agriculture, power, roads, water—all of it was gone and there was really no plan in place that would help the people to start climbing back out of the very deep hole that Maria put them in. The island had to rely on the U.S. for much assistance, while the Puerto Rico government made many promises about being better prepared next time around. The problem is that unless the spirit of the government changes, the same lack of preparation will be an issue again and again and again.
References
Acevedo, N. (2018). Puerto Rico lacked disaster planning, communications strategy, hurricane study found. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/puerto-rico-lacked-disaster-planning-communications-strategy-hurricane-study-found-n904866
Achenbach, J. & Hernandez, A. (2017). FEMA administrator: Puerto Rico’s politics, lack of unity, hindering hurricane response. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fema-administrator-puerto-ricos-politics-lack-of-unity-hindering-hurricane-response/2017/10/09/f1711996-ad10-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.eef2e6bc0e3e
Amnesty International. (2018). Puerto Rico a year after Hurricane Maria. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/09/puerto-rico-a-year-after-hurricane-maria/
Bomey, N. (2017). Hurricane Maria halts crucial drug manufacturing in Puerto Rico, may spur shortages. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/22/hurricane-maria-pharmaceutical-industry-puerto-rico/692752001/
CDC. (2019). PHEP. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/epf/docs/PuertoRico.pdf de Arzola, O. R. (2018). Emergency Preparedness and Hurricane Maria: The Experience of a Regional Academic Medical Center in Southwest Puerto Rico. Journal of Graduate Medical Education,10(4), 477-480. Florido, A. (2018). Government Lawyer Says Puerto Rico's Hurricane Response Plan 'Does Not Exist'. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/10/30/662345336/government-lawyer-says-puerto-ricos-hurricane-response-plan-does-not-exist
McMahon, C. (2018). Double down on the Jones Act? Journal of Maritime Law & Commerce, 49(2), 153-195.
Samaan, J. L., & Verneuil, L. (2009). Civil–Military Relations in Hurricane Katrina: a case study on crisis management in natural disaster response. Humanitarian Assistance: Improving US-European Cooperation, Center for Transatlantic Relations/Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD/Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin, 413-432.