{"id":3581,"date":"2019-03-11T21:59:52","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T21:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/?p=3581"},"modified":"2020-05-19T16:46:41","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T16:46:41","slug":"when-did-hurricane-maria-become-a-disaster-fernando-briones-on-vulnerability-in-puerto-rico-and-dominica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/2019\/03\/11\/when-did-hurricane-maria-become-a-disaster-fernando-briones-on-vulnerability-in-puerto-rico-and-dominica\/","title":{"rendered":"When did Hurricane Maria become a disaster? Fernando Briones on vulnerability in Puerto Rico and Dominica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
In remote villages like Jayuya, Puerto Rico, many house still needs to be repaired. The blue plastics roof where provided by FEMA in most cases, but also by NGOs. 2018. Photo: Fernando Briones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

by Alison Gilchrist, CSTPR Science Writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When is the eruption of a volcano a natural disaster? You may be thinking what I was when Fernando Briones asked me a similar question: always. But Briones has a different answer: sometimes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briones, a recent research affiliate with the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research<\/a> (CSTPR), argues that a natural hazard<\/em> only becomes a natural disaster <\/em>when affected people are around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA volcanic eruption in the middle of a tiny isolated island is not a disaster,\u201d said Briones. \u201cIt\u2019s just a volcanic eruption. But that same eruption in Quito, or Ecuador, or Mexico City, or wherever there are people around\u2014that becomes a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briones has a PhD in Social Anthropology from The School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences<\/a>, in Paris, France. He is primarily interested in how people are managed or manage themselves before and after natural disasters affect their communities. He argues that being vulnerable to a natural disaster is the result of social vulnerability as much as geographic vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDisasters are the result of human management, the way that we interact with nature, that way that we become vulnerable to those hazards,\u201d said Briones. \u201cDisasters are the combination of a natural hazard and social conditions of vulnerability and risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This boy grows up in shelter with his mother, one year and half of the Hurricane Maria. Scotts Head, Dominica. 2019. Photo: Fernando Briones.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Currently, Briones is studying the aftereffects of Hurricane\nMaria, the hurricane that struck Puerto Rico in 2017, devastating the region\nand leaving people without adequate power and shelter for months. It was an\nongoing, aggravating news story in the United States\u2014but most of us were\nunaware of the true extent of the hurricane\u2019s devastation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHurricane Maria, as everyone knows, devasted Puerto Rico,\u201d\nsaid Briones. \u201cBut it also devastated Dominica. And nobody thinks about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commonwealth of Dominica is an island country in the West Indies. It was also hit by Hurricane Maria, and has not recovered as well since. Smaller and poorer than Puerto Rico, it also does not have the economic advantage of being a territory of the United States. Federal resources were fewer and farther between, and the long-term effects of that lack of resources are still being felt. Many people displaced from housing in Dominica are still living in shelters\u2014arrangements that were really meant to be temporary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found in Dominica that people stay in the shelters for\none and a half years,\u201d said Briones. \u201cIt sounds horrible, but those people are\ngoing to die sooner than the life expectancy.\u201d Living in a shelter is\ndemoralizing, depressing, and economically punishing. \u201cBeing in shelters is a\nwaste of a generation,\u201d Briones concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briones is researching these circumstances, particularly in\ncomparison to Puerto Rico, which had a larger influx of foreign aid. He\u2019s\nespecially interested in how people first respond to a disaster, before there\nis a response from government institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found that the disaster triggered a lot of community organizations,\u201d said Briones, about people responding to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. \u201cCreativity is so important; people became so organized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
 A large number of homes remain in ruins along the island. Petite Soufriere, Dominica. 2019. Photo: Fernando Briones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With a \u201cboots on the ground\u201d approach\u2014talking to citizens\ndirectly affected by the crises\u2014Briones is compiling an incredible wealth of\nknowledge about these early responses. He\u2019s currently collecting this\nqualitative data in Puerto Rico and Dominica such that he can compare the two\ndisaster responses, \u201cin order to prepare better preparedness systems and\nresilience, and to understand vulnerability,\u201d said Briones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously at CCB\/INSTAAR<\/a> (sponsored by Alumni TIES program<\/a> in Puerto Rico) and now at CSTPR, Briones is working with Max Boykoff<\/a> to develop a proposal for this work. He\u2019s also collaborating with CIRES<\/a>, making the project extensively interdisciplinary. Moreover, his collaborations in Dominica, for example with the Minister of the Environment<\/a>, ensure that his research will directly help people in vulnerable areas of society. In particular, he wants to draw attention to the fact that a vulnerable population made Hurricane Maria much more devastating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Father and son installing a water collection system, using their own knowledge and materials. Jayuya, Puerto Rico. 2018. Photo: Fernando Briones.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe hurricanes were important, but the real risk was to be\nsettled in vulnerable places. If people settled in a landslide area, it\u2019s not\nbecause they wanted to be in danger, it\u2019s because they had no choice,\u201d said\nBriones. \u201cPerhaps the housing there was cheap. Or they were installed without\nthe proper advisement. So human management or management of the territory is a\nvery important key in reducing the vulnerability of communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briones is also a photographer, so apart from this research,\nBriones spent some of his time in Dominica taking pictures. The results, stark photographs\nof people and places in Dominica ruined by the hurricane, are particularly\ndevastating. Briones hopes that it is a combination of research, storytelling,\nand pictures like these that will get the story of Dominica as much attention\nas the story of Puerto Rico\u2014that might not be much, but it will help.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean isn\u2019t a\ndisaster\u2014it\u2019s just some clouds and wind in a funnel. But when that funnel\ntouches down on land, displacing thousands of vulnerable people, and disrupting\ncommunities on a long-term scale\u2014that\u2019s a disaster. The distinction is\nimportant because it changes the equation: humans can\u2019t stop the hurricane, but\nwith the right information and the right actions pre- and post- landfall, they\ncan mitigate the disastrous consequences. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alison Gilchrist, CSTPR Science Writer When is the eruption of a volcano a natural disaster? You may be thinking what I was when Fernando Briones asked me a similar question: always. But Briones has a different answer: sometimes. Briones, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentaries","category-science-writer-alison-gilchrist"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 22:29:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4343,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions\/4343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}