C&EN Global Enterp 2018.96:32-32. Downloaded from pubs.acs.org by 185.46.87.169 on 09/21/18. For personal use only.
Cover story
Puerto Rico se levanta Rallying under the motto “rises,” scientists reflect on the island’s resiliency and challenges one year after Hurricane Maria LISA M. JARVIS, C&EN CHICAGO
hen Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico last year, no one was prepared for its destruction. Though smack in the middle of Hurricane Alley, the island has, historically, been lucky: Hurricanes have nearly always veered off at the last minute, as Irma had done just two weeks earlier.
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and insufficient response to the storm. Many went But on Sept. 20, 2017, Maria struck with a brutality that left a lasting, visible imprint. It’s in the sea of for months without clean water or electricity, aftereffects implicated in the estimated 3,000 peoblue Federal Emergency Management Agency tarps ple who died as a result of Maria. that are visible as a plane descends into San Juan, In addition to lives, the situation also imperiled the pockets of the island that only recently regained power, the homes that have yet to be rebuilt, and the Puerto Rico’s already-shaky economy, the stability of its academic institutions, and the environmental people who are still grappling with profound loss even while they are fiercely proud of how their com- health of the island. C&EN explores the recovery efforts for each of those segments: how the pharmaceumunity came together in the period after the storm. tical industry, a critical component of the As has been well documented, Puerto Rican economy and an important the problems went far beyond the cog in the global pharmaceutical supply flooding, downed trees, and damaged ▸ Maria’s lessons for chain, is learning from its experiences homes expected from a Category 4 storm. The humanitarian crisis in the drug industry P.34 during and after Maria; how chemistry ▸ Universities on the professors and students at universities Puerto Rico was exacerbated by an came together to revive research; and island-wide power and communicaroad to recovery P.40 ▸ Health effects of how scientists are tracking the safety of tions outage, alongside what many the island’s water and air. Maria may linger P.47 feel was the U.S. government’s slow
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
