The Facade of Natural Disaster
Neoliberalism Behind Hurricane Maria
Jane Wu
Sept 2023
Joe Raedle/Getty Images via NPR
When Hurricane Maria ravaged the coast of Puerto Rico in September 2017, pictures of its aftermath flooded the media. We saw roofs being ripped off in the pouring rain, cars drowned in muddy roads, and howling winds destroying cell towers that provided important digital communication. We heard of Maria as the devastating Category 5 storm that reflected the horrors of climate change. We hoped the worst of the disaster had already passed and turned our attention to recovery stories, published by hashtags like #PuertoRicoSeLevanta (#PuertoRicoRises). We admired Puerto Rican persistence from afar: the way local communities came together to build community kitchens, clear roads, organize medical clinics, and construct makeshift homes.
Outsider perspectives often glorify the pattern of self-reliance illustrated by the media. Yet, the government’s repeated abandonment forced Puerto Ricans to adopt these measures even though they were left to work with insufficient resources and flimsy infrastructure—both tangible and socioeconomic. “Why Must Puerto Ricans Always Be Resilient?” Yarimar Bonilla begs this question in the title of her New York Times article, where she urges that beyond temporary repairs and emergency initiatives, “Puerto Ricans deserve more than Band-Aids that will be ripped away by the next disaster.” Two years after Maria, dilapidated buildings, exposed power lines, broken traffic lights, and unattended litter still fill the landscape. However, this physical damage only scraped the surface of issues that have accumulated and intensified over the years. In Bonilla’s paper, “The Coloniality of Disaster: Race, Empire, and the Temporal Logics of Emergency in Puerto Rico, USA,” she ultimately points to a combination of discriminatory imperialism and neoliberal free-market deregulation as the main culprits. Influenced by these factors and additional economic motives, the U.S. response to Maria proved not only inadequate, but also reflected the federal government’s proclivity to offer momentary solutions without sufficient efforts to address past failures. In this paper, I will use Bonilla’s sociocolonial theory of disaster capitalism to reveal ongoing patterns of exploitation that modern-day expectations of resilience tend to overshadow, specifically the impacts of neoliberal economic policies post-Maria as addressed in Kobi Naseck’s paper, “Disaster Capitalism on Puerto Rico: Causes and Consequences of the Privatization of Puerto Rico’s Public Electric Authority after Hurricane Maria.”
While Puerto Ricans held onto their identity as U.S. citizens who were protected under the federal government, they waited weeks for meager food supply, helicopters, and aid workers to arrive. Soon, they realized that “the true disaster was not the storm itself, but what was laid bare in its wake: the neglected infrastructure of an island in crisis, the economic cleavages of a society marked by profound disparity, the naked disdain of an imperial state, and the forms of structural neglect and social abandonment that had already come to characterize this bankrupt colony” (Bonilla, “Coloniality” 3). The resulting narrative of post-catastrophe resilience frequently portrayed in the media does not capture the full story nor do it justice. It perpetuates ignorant expectations of recovery that exclude underrepresented communities that disasters impact most. Beyond embodying an unfortunate event, Maria showed the “‘slow violence’ of colonial and racial governance which sets the stage for the accelerated dispossession made evident in a state of emergency” (Bonilla, “Coloniality” 2). Although authorities often use the inevitable connotation of catastrophe to deflect culpability for corrupt policies, we must better understand it as a construct fueled by historical disparities and imperial capitalism.
In order to make long-term progress in strengthening countries like Puerto Rico, the US must take responsibility to fix structural vulnerabilities. The racial and economic inequalities Maria surfaced in Puerto Rico stem from the poor, dependent infrastructure that the U.S. set up after it won control of the Caribbean islands during the Spanish-American war. Even though Puerto Rico was established as a commonwealth state with some degree of self-rule, the ambiguous legal, social, and territorial undercurrent did not give it equal representation in Washington. In fact, the U.S. saw their new territory as an opportunity to capitalize wealth and provide benefits to the mainland while leaving it an “archipelago of radicalized neglect” (Bonilla, “Coloniality” 2). Modeled after European colonialism, the U.S imposed their own laws, leaders, and treaties on the island. Legislation confined residents within a prejudiced form of colonialism that “simultaneously exploited Puerto Rico for its strategic geographic position, natural resources, and labor force but neglected to grant it a path to statehood or other benefits of union membership” (Naseck 9). According to Naomi Klein from The Intercept, 85% of Puerto Rican food and 98% of energy comes from imports despite having fertile soil and ample renewable wind, water, and solar power. By relying on others’ reserves, Puerto Rico strayed from structural independence and instead morphed into a “captive market for imported food and fuel” (Klein). Since Puerto Rico was set up as a dependent economic colony and exploited for their strategic geographic location, the hierarchical chain of resources they received from the U.S. reflected an inferior economic status. Through the 1900 Foraker Act, the U.S. President installed a civilian government while imposing tariffs on Puerto Rican imports to protect U.S. goods. Threatened by foreign competition, the U.S. further attempted to suppress Puerto Rico through the following Jones Act of 1920, a protectionist maritime commerce policy allowing only U.S-owned ships to transport goods between U.S. ports in the Caribbean (Naseck 9). In the wake of Maria a century later, these restrictions greatly limited the speed and variety of materials prepared and transported for Puerto Rico. Although President Trump did temporarily waive the Jones Act to speed up sluggish oversea aid efforts, the U.S. never took the time to improve or amend the policy and make exceptions for future disasters in the long term. In fact, the Jones Act continued to prolong aid response when Hurricane Fiona hit just two months ago. The U.S. was not only unprepared in terms of risk prevention but did not foresee potential issues when past policies often posed impediments to providing aid. Puerto Rico was also never given a voice to provide input on these decisions, as they still do not have access to the participatory vote. This excludes over three million people from decisions made by uninformed U.S. officials who did not plan or respond adequately to Maria. While the government names disaster as the front cover of the non-resilient infrastructure, they perpetuate expectations of self-help and community resilience that push more responsibility onto victims of failing governance.
When the same authorities work with large firms that prioritize commercial and political interests despite their effects on Puerto Rican welfare, the archipelago becomes ill-equipped to thrive on its own, much less prepared to undergo the challenges that Maria posed. The result: governance-induced disinvestment that persisted throughout the more recent leadup of Maria. Puerto Rico already struggled with a deflated economy and severe debt from overborrowing since they were excluded from territorial bankruptcy protections back in 1952, but this crisis worsened with the 2008 recession to the point where the fifty states had nearly three times the gross national income of Puerto Rico, where 45% of people lived under the poverty line (Bonilla, “Coloniality” 6). Governmental agencies fell into crippling debt, including the Puerto Rico Emergency Preparedness Agency (PREPA), which increased energy prices and decreased its consumer availability. Yet, Congress undermined continual efforts to declare bankruptcy by establishing the 2016 Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) and its unelected board called the Fiscal Oversight Management Board (FOMB or “La Junta”) which handled public debt by shrinking government spending through austerity measures: “closing schools, consolidating agencies, suspending public services, and privatizing public infrastructure (such as airports, highways, and utility systems), all while raising the sales tax and government fees” (Bonilla, “Coloniality” 6). The U.S. turned deteriorating public services over to private agents in hopes that they would lighten the load of bankruptcy, but “at least half of the members of the FOMB have strong political ties to the Government Development Bank and powerful financial institutions on the island, some of which facilitated the sale of so much debt” (Naseck 31). Although locals urged for stronger infrastructure and disaster support in anticipation of the next hurricane season, their cries went largely unnoticed by their detached “representatives,” many of whom did not share the same concerns as they lived in well-equipped, expensive areas of Puerto Rico where cabling and water reserves are taken for granted. These elites held ties to wealthy U.S. investors who migrated from the mainland to enjoy “economic incentives, regulatory freedom, and value opportunities… to retain their US citizenship while opting out of tax obligations” (Bonilla, “Coloniality” 6-7) while Puerto Ricans found themselves paying higher taxes and struggling with land-grabbing gentrification. Hoping to capitalize off new doors to the private sector, the U.S. government portioned investment towards businesses while dwindling essential spending. The neoliberal landscape in Puerto Rico, which “preaches limited government spending but still requires investment in public services and encourages public services themselves to be profitable market opportunities” (Naseck 63), persisted despite its consequences on the broader population. When Maria further shocked the economy, disaster capitalism added to preexisting austerity measures as investors rushed in to take control of failing agencies in dire need of money while compromising service quality.
As PREPA, too, fell victim to privatization, Puerto Ricans felt betrayed and abandoned once again by presidentially appointed authorities and programs that suppressed local needs. Chaos peaked during the aftermath of Maria when inadequate supply of power and electricity faced high demand; Puerto Ricans struggled to fill out assistance forms when access to cellular service, Internet, and electricity was widely unstable. Hoping to rebuild the power grid with reliable funding sources, PREPA engaged in Private-Public-Partnerships (PPP) with organizations like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, contracted to the private Fluor Corporation. While they originally stationed around 6,200 workers to repair power transmission lines in Puerto Rico, Fluor decided to end the project midway when their $750 million contract maxed out. Prioritizing profits over completion, the inefficient efforts left over one million Puerto Ricans without power, especially those in the island’s central mountains (Naseck 63). A contract may have seemed appealing because “there are, objectively, some things that the private sector could do better, but an abundance of contracts and contractors who do not communicate with one another and drain a nationalized company of its cash and rack up debts is anything but beneficial” (Naseck 62). After accumulating $9 million in debt from past PPPs, (Wilkins), PREPA fell into their most recent—and arguably most controversial—cycle of privatization. In 2021, they signed a fifteen-year contract with LUMA Energy, which privately managed distribution of the fossil-fuel-reliant power grid. Yet, citizens like Ayala reported facing greater energy burdens as they paid “$242 for our electric bill, compared with $87 for that month last year.” Nearly 8% of consumer income went towards electricity costs in exchange for “massive blackouts, including one in April of 2022 that left the entire island without power” (Wilkins). When fees prevail even if the job is done poorly, firms involved in the agreement do not take accountability for their actions. Elites running disorganized, dysfunctional systems continue getting richer as the economy continues to unravel.
Such an important facet of the narrative—residents’ firsthand experiences and struggles with privatization—did not fully surface until Puerto Rico started to protest the absurd measures forced upon them. Articles emerged with titles like “Protest in Puerto Rico Over Austerity Measures Ends in Tear Gas” (Mazzei). They told stories of residents leaving the island in an exodus as they lost hope in the government because the storms and the aftermath process repeated after years and years of resilience. The violent clash between police and large crowds shouting “They won’t stop us!” shocked the media. Yet, the duty of complacent resilience still felt internalized. According to Governor Ricardo Rosello, the protests “damage[d] the good name of Puerto Rico” (Mazzei). It is no surprise that the Rosello administration, the very face of privatization in Puerto Rico, also capitalized off Puerto Rican endurance in the face of vulnerability.
This particular facade of resilience after natural disaster distracts the narrative from economic disparities that made Puerto Rico “tired of celebrating our ability to endure, of being creative in the face of adversity and of surviving despite state neglect. After Maria, we rallied together in a spirit of collective recovery, but we can no longer carry the weight. The storms will keep coming, and we can’t be expected to pick ourselves back up on our own again and again. We need our government infrastructure to be as resilient as we are forced to be” (Bonilla, “Why Must Puerto Ricans”). True recovery should point to decolonization and prevent U.S. corporations from garbling profits from bankrupt governments. Instead of using the increasing force of climate change as an excuse for the aftermath, we must see it as a reason to build a stronger economy—the most essential weapon against destruction—in Puerto Rico and underprivileged areas alike.