Taking stock of Puerto Rico, six months after Hurricane Maria

When Hurricane Maria battered their home island in September, Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland activated immediately. At a Johns Hopkins panel discussion Tuesday that assessed Puerto Rico's recovery six months after the devastating storm, scholars described how Puerto Ricans in the diaspora ignited an wave of grassroots support through social media and personal favors, leading to mass deliveries of supplies to the island.

It's a "complete shift in the paradigm of emergency response," said Yale infectious disease specialist Marietta Vazquez, one of the panelists.

"What you have is just people, regular citizens, who were able to organize and establish an effective grassroots response that was timely and replicable," she said. "They were able to deliver life-saving supplies and medication … in a way that government officials and federal agencies could not do."

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