PUERTO RICO ONE YEAR LATER.

• Author: Bubar, Joe
• Position: NATIONAL

Thousands of Puerto Ricans have fled to the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Maria struck last September. Back on the island, many residents have faced a long road to recovery.

Derick Ortiz and Damara Navarro, both 17, grew up in northeastern Puerto Rico, about 25 miles from each other. But their lives began to head in different directions on the morning of September 20 of last year, when Puerto Rico was ravaged by one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean-Hurricane Maria.

In the small, coastal city of Fajardo, Derick, his mom, dad, and younger sister lived without running water and electricity for three weeks after the storm wiped out power and nearly all cell service to the entire island and damaged about a third of all Puerto Rican homes. Derick's school and the hotel where both his parents worked were shut down.

In desperation, the Ortiz family decided in October to flee the only place they'd ever called home, bidding goodbye to their friends and relatives in Puerto Rico to start a new life in Orlando, Florida.

"I was literally crying," says Derick, "because I grew up with them and they were the only thing I had, and now I was going to leave them behind."

Meanwhile, a 45-minute drive up the coast from where the Ortizes had lived, Damara remained in her hometown of Loiza, Puerto Rico, where she, her mom, and her grandmother struggled to regain normalcy.

"There were people who lost their rooftops, there were some who lost their whole house," says Damara. "It was chaos." The fates of Derick's and Damara's families reflect the two paths Puerto Ricans took after Maria: staying on the island amid all the destruction or fleeing. About 200,000 Puerto Ricans (6 percent of Puerto Rico's pre-hurricane population of 3.3 million) have left for the mainland United States since the storm, according to Puerto Rican government estimates. All Puerto Ricans are American citizens (see "The 51st State?" p. 16), but those who fled the island have had to start over in an unfamiliar place.

Those who stayed behind have faced a different struggle. One year later, major cities like San Juan have largely recovered from the storm, but thousands of homes across the island still don't have permanent roofs. Electricity wasn't restored to all of the island until last month, and power is still spotty in some areas, with frequent outages.

Nearly Bankrupt

Even before the hurricane, Puerto Rico had fallen on hard times. The U.S. territory...