I was 13 when Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico. More than anything else, I remember the sound of my windows moving, as if at any moment the glass would crash into the apartment. I remember the darkness, the heat, the silence after the storm passed, and the way everything felt broken. Not just buildings and roads, but people. Families. Me.
Growing up in Puerto Rico, hurricanes were almost a myth. A big one hadn’t happened since the 90s. We all thought it would be another common storm that every weather channel said was gonna hit us, but would eventually move and we’d be out of its path. However, María wasn’t just another storm: it was the one that changed everything. It ripped through our homes, our routines, our sense of safety. And for those of us who were kids or teens at the time, it marked a before and after in our lives.
Even now, years later, I still feel it. The anxiety when the sky turns gray. The panic when the power goes out during a storm. The way my body tenses at the sound of heavy rain. It’s not just fear, it’s something deeper. Something that settled in my nervous system and refuses to leave. PTSD isn’t just a diagnosis I read about in studies; it’s something I live with.
I remember cancelling a weekend getaway to Ireland. A Category 4 hurricane was heading toward the region, and while it seemed obvious to cancel, the feeling it stirred in me wasn’t just disappointment. It was dreadful. I wasn’t just bummed about losing money or having to reschedule. I was terrified of being trapped, powerless, far from home, with no way to protect myself. That fear wasn’t rational, it was 2017-me hiding under the stairs, reminding me of what it felt like to be stuck in the eye of a storm with no idea of what was to come.
What makes it worse is knowing how badly we were failed. After María, the government lied about how many people died. They said it was dozens, when it was thousands. Thousands of lives lost, and they tried to erase them with a smaller count. If another María were to hit, I honestly don’t know if we’d survive it. Not just physically, but emotionally. The fear isn’t hypothetical, it’s lived, and it’s constant.
I’ve talked to others my age who feel the same. Some of us still have trouble sleeping. Some struggle with concentration, with mood swings, with a constant sense of unease. And it’s not just personal, it’s collective. We watched our parents break down, our schools close, our communities scramble to survive. We witnessed the failure of systems that were supposed to protect us. And we learned, too early, that survival sometimes means carrying invisible wounds.
Mental health professionals have started to map this trauma, and the numbers are sobering. Many kids who lived through María show signs of PTSD, these especially found in girls. Coping strategies like avoidance or emotional suppression sometimes make things worse, and while there are efforts to provide support, it often feels like we’re still waiting for someone to truly understand what we went through.
I don’t want to be defined by a hurricane. None of us do. But we also can’t pretend it didn’t shape us. We know we are resilient, but resilience isn’t the same as healing. We need space to talk about what happened, to process it, to get help without shame or stigma. María may have passed, but for many of us, the storm never really ended. It lives in our memories, our bodies, our fears. And until we face it head-on, we’ll keep carrying it with us quietly, painfully, and bravely.