Disaster response / September 2017
Operation Caribbean
Two hurricanes in two weeks. HARP Rescue arrived a day after the first and was still working when the second crossed the island.
- 65+people given life-saving assistance
- 5generators restored
- 2of them powering rural hospitals
- 24hafter Irma, HARP was on the ground
Figures from HARP Rescue’s impact report for Operation Caribbean.
A / The situation
Two hurricanes, two weeks apart.
On September 6, 2017, Hurricane Irma passed just north of Puerto Rico as a Category 5 storm. It never made landfall, but its 185-mph winds knocked out power to about 70 percent of the island’s electricity customers.1
Two weeks later, on September 20, Hurricane Maria made landfall near Yabucoa on the southeast coast as a Category 4, with winds of 155 mph.2 It crossed the island diagonally to the northwest and left the whole island without power — the start of the longest blackout in U.S. history.3 Puerto Rico’s government later put the death toll at 2,975.4
B / The call
On the ground in 24 hours.
HARP Rescue arrived 24 hours after Irma passed and immediately partnered with Team Rubicon to clear and secure storm-damaged roads.
Days later, the team set up a base in Rincón, on the west coast, and began finding and bringing back residents who had sheltered in the hills.
C / The plan
Roads first, then people.
Clearing roads came first, because nothing else could move until they were open. With routes secured, the team turned to the people who were missing or cut off.
One task stood out: a small rural town isolated by mudslides that had cut every way in. Medical care and evacuations there had stalled because no one could reach it.
D / In the field
Through the mudslides.
HARP reached the isolated town, gave medical help and moved people out — work that had been delayed for as long as the town had been cut off.
With the grid down, power became a matter of life and death. The team restored five generators, two of them for rural hospitals caring for critically injured patients.
E / The outcome
Sixty-five people. Five generators.
Across the operation, HARP Rescue gave life-saving assistance to more than 65 people and brought five generators back into service, keeping two rural hospitals running for the patients who depended on them.
The team arrived after the first storm and was still working when the second struck the island.
Sources
HARP Rescue’s actions and figures come from its own impact report for this operation. Background on the event comes from the public sources below.
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