Only the People Can Save the People: Community Resilience and Water Insecurity Responses in Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season is considered as one of the costliest in U.S. history. In the case of the archipelago of Puerto Rico, 3.2 million people were without energy, approximately a third of the residents were without municipal water services, houses and larger infrastructures were severely damaged among other challenges. While both the local and federal government have been highlighted to be inefficient to meet resident’s needs, the people took the streets to assist family, neighbors as well as to collaborate with non-profits and faith-based groups. These organizational efforts allowed the supply of water, food, clothes, and emotional support in areas with the most needs. In light of this knowledge, this dissertation focuses on two main areas: (1) communities’ capacities to absorb and adapt in the wake of a disaster (2) how households addressed large-scale water infrastructure failure. I investigate resilience in the communities of Corcovada, Anasco and Mariana, Humacao, and water insecurity in the municipalities of Anasco, Rincon, and Mayaguez. I do this through a mixed-methods approach including semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and an open-ended structured protocol with egocentric network elicitation. I engage with the literature on social capital, water sharing, social networks in disaster context, autogestion (self-management) and informality to examine the dynamics occurring in response and recovery efforts. The three sub-study mixed-method dissertation examines: 1) how social capital in low-income communities can support resilience, 2) the role of social networks and water sharing to cope with water insecurity in the wake of Hurricane Maria, 3) autogestion (self-management) at the household and community level and how does it fit with both the larger political economic dynamics in the archipelago as well as the post-disaster context. The results have theoretical and practical implications for future hurricane planning in Puerto Rico and for other sites at high disaster risk around the world.