Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Destroying a Country Is Men's Business

2021; Duke University Press; Volume: 4; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/26410478-8855291

2641-0478

Anayra Santory Jorge, Nicole Delgado,

Health and Conflict Studies

On Au gust 7, 1899, a pow er ful hur ri cane struck the coasts of the French island of Dominica.A suc cinct ca ble ar rived in Puerto Rico, which read: "Communication is cut off in east ern Cuba: the hur ri cane seems to be approaching Puerto Rico." 1 Dominica was only a bead in the neck lace of is lands destroyed by Hurricane San Ciriaco.In 2017, 118 years lat er, Hurricane María would tie us up again with the thread of an al ready-for got ten plot.This time, we did not re ceive a ca ble.During the last hours with elec tric i ty, we were able to read the state ments of the prime min is ter of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, who, af er be ing res cued from his roof ess home, told the world that in a sin gle night his small coun try of 750 square ki lo me ters and se ven tyfive thou sand in hab i tants had lost ev ery thing money could re place.On Au gust 8, 1899, and with out time to pre pare, Puerto Rico witnessed Hurricane San Ciriaco sneak through the town of Arroyo and leave six hours later through the town of Aguadilla.María would fol low in its foot steps a cen tury lat er.It en tered the island shortly af er 6:00 a.m. of Sep tem ber 20, 2017, destroying ev ery thing in its path.That day we never saw the sun.The dim light from the elec tric bulbs would not come back for many months.One-hun dred-fif y-five-mile-an-hour winds roared across the beaches in the town of Yabucoa, where two tor na does were later sight ed.Like San Ciriaco, María lef the island through the north coast a few hours af er noon, some where be tween the towns of Quebradillas and Camuy.It was not the same coun try af er San Ciriaco or María roared away from our shores.During the few hours the storms spent over the island, Puerto Rico moved into new cen tu ries.When the winds of San Ciriaco eased off-for twen ty-eight con sec u tive days it did not stop raining-2,184 res i dents had died, most of them from the tor ren tial