Residents of Puerto Rico received devastating winds and rainfall because of Hurricane Maria in 2017. Those affected range from ages as young as babies and to the elderly, including every age in between. Most homes and buildings were demolished throughout the duration of the hurricane. Even in the early months of 2018, these citizens of Puerto Rico still call for aid. The aftermath of Hurricane Maria is said to have set the country back decades. Ruins of Puerto Rico are found everywhere on the land. Several people are suffering in the same ways which include a lack of electricity, easy access to clean water, and places to live. Another scarce necessity is gasoline. Due to unclear roads for travel, trade has been restricted within
The Haiti earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010 just fifteen miles south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince was a severely large-scale earthquake, at a magnitude of 7.0. The initial shock was then followed by a series of aftershocks with magnitudes ranging up to 5.9. Over three hundred thousand people died due to this extreme chaos. Many buildings collapsed and disintegrated under the force of the quake; both the cathedral and National Palace in Port-au-Prince were heavily damaged. In the aftermath of this tragedy, efforts to aid the people of Haiti with medical assistance, water, and food were hampered by the loss of communication lines as well as by roads blocked by debris. Over one million people were left homeless due to this quake. Two days after the earthquake, journalist Leonard Pitts wrote “Sometimes the Earth is Cruel,” an article describing how the people of Haiti responded to the disaster. In “Sometimes the Earth is Cruel,” a major theme is that some things are inevitable.
Having investigated the case studies of two natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina & Typhoon Haiyan, I have noticed that MEDCs and LEDCs respond much differently to a certain situation. Katrina and Haiyan both happened in countries with contrasting levels of economic development, therefore reacting much differently to the circumstances. In this essay, I will be discussing the various reasons to why LEDCs and MEDCs behave in such a contradictory manner.
As you can see in the graph above, family characteristics of US and Puerto Rico families differ in many ways. Families in Puerto Rico can be very large with many generations living in the same home for a great period of time. In the United States, this would seem very strange because we put such an importance on being independent and going out into the world and making something of ourselves. Our families tend to be smaller and family outings are not very common but once a few times a year. In the Puerto Rico, your family is your support system, your friends and whatever you do is for the betterment of the family. The United States puts more emphasis on our friends as our support group and what we do is to further our own personal achievement and status instead of our family. At their core, Puerto Rican families are about support and togetherness, while United States families are about stability until we have a chance to make a name for ourselves. The Puerto Rican family aspect and togetherness is something extremely lacking in the United States and something I personally believe we ...
In the histories of Colonial Latin America there is one common aspect and that is the importation of slaves as a labor force. The resulting consequences for the territory are vital if we are to understand the development of the society. In Puerto Rico these consequences deal mainly with African influence on the peasantry, the corrective measures taken thereafter to negate the African influence, and the results of these corrective measures.
Governments, the private sector, Non Governmental Organizations and Community Organizations play vital roles in recovery. The essence of a recovery effort is the resources captures to assist, the capability of assistance and other best practices for recovering from a disaster. Rubin and Popkin, (1990) in their report entitled Disaster Recovery after hurricane Hugo in South Carolina thoroughly outline many challenges to which organization and other bodies had face in Hurricane Hugo’s recovery effort. These inefficiencies cause a spiral of increase lost of life, property and livelihood for hundreds of people to which the hurricane affected.
Puerto Ricans have a very distinct and complicated history. Their history is unlike any other immigrants who migrated at the United States at any time. Their island became a focus of the United States in 1898, when they won the island as booty in the Spanish-American war. Puerto Ricans residing in the United States have always had the dilemma of having to straddle both the American and Puerto Rican cultures and Spanish and English languages. In my opinion, Puerto Ricans have never had it easy living in the United States. So when I ask my grandparents, and other older generation Puerto Ricans why they decided to migrate from what I thought was "paradise" to the United States, they all give me the same answer. They wanted a better future for their families. They all felt that once they lived in the United States, opportunity would be knocking at the door.
“It’s amazing how our life can change from one day to another and Mother of Nature is one of them. Hurricane Katrina a category 4 hurricane struck the Gulf Coast of the United States on August 29, 2005, causing death and destruction in New Orleans. Katrina will be remembered by all victims in New Orleans and around the world.” Hurricane Katrina was declared the costliest and most destructive natural disaster in history, because of the strong winds and storm causing destruction of many towns and communities for more than a million people. (History.com Staff).
The US government should be well-prepared for the hurricane since it’s a modern, developed, wealthy country. Hurricane Katrina definitely showed how well the United States protect its own people. Knowing hurricanes are natural disasters, which cannot be prevented from happening. Although the US has advanced technology to spot the natural disasters much easier than other countries, it still couldn’t provide the best for the citizens. The government is not prepared for the storm, mainly because they began to play a role in the disaster. People were warned to leave before the hurricane, but many poor people had no access to transportations, which also caused hundreds of thousands of people were influenced.
Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating natural disasters to happen in the United States. The storm resulted in more then US$100 billion in damage when the cities flood protection broke and 80% of the city was flooded (1). The protection failure was not the only cause for the massive flooding, the hurricanes clockwise rotation pulled water from north of New Orleans into the city. 330,000 homes were destroyed and 400,000 people from New Orleans were displaced, along with 13,00 killed (1). Although the population quickly recovered, the rate of recovery slowed down as the years went on leading us to believe not everyone
In a hurricane, the infrastructure may be destroyed making impossible to get new supplies. Increased the price during this pe...
Katrina demolished more residential buildings than any other recent hurricane and ‘’Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne which in total, wrecked approximately 85,000 homes.’’ Hurricane Katrina also left ‘’many people homeless as more than 800,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged in the storm.’’ The storm dislocated beyond a million people in the Gulf Coast region. Even though residents have returned home, up to ‘’600,000 households were still displaced a month later.’’ The storm may have happened in 2006, but it still impacted the following year by 85 percent of public schools remaining
America saw the loss of a city of enormous cultural and economic value the morning Katrina hit. New Orleans was a cultural epicenter for our country, it was the birthplace of jazz music it’s nickname “The Big Easy”. All came crashing down in a blink of an eye turning what was once a city of laughter, music and known for their mardi gras parade turned into dark skies and disaster causing many residents to loose everything they ever worked for.
Puerto Rico at the expense of native people (6). After the Cape San Vicente disaster,
A few days ago, Haiti was hit by a gruesome tropical storm which soon turned into a category five hurricane, known as Hurricane Matthew. The towns, Jeremie and the Sud Province were the worse hit by the deadly hurricane. BBC News reported, “in Jeremie 80 percent of the towns buildings were leveled, while the Sud Province estimated a total of 30 thousand homes that were damaged or demolished by Hurricane Matthew” (“Hurricane Matthew” n.p.). Many families are trying to rebuild their homes from the ground up salvaging what can be saved, but the mayhem of the deadly storm leaves them nearly with nothing. Hurricane Matthew is now known as one of the deadliest hurricanes
Every year many natural disasters happen around the world. In New Orleans, and several other states, a devastating hurricane struck. High speed winds and major flooding caused many people to lose their homes and even their lives. Many people have heard of hurricane Katrina, but not everybody knows what caused it and the affect it had on the United States.