Puerto Rico — Natural Disaster Report
North America · Live status: Low (1 active event)
Current situation: 1 natural disaster event is currently monitored in Puerto Rico, with a worst severity of Minor. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017, which destroyed the electricity grid and left much of the island without power for months; excess-mortality studies later estimated around 3,000 deaths, far above the initial official count, making it a landmark case in how disaster deaths are counted. In late 2019 and early 2020 an earthquake sequence in the southwest damaged housing and closed schools. The island faces hurricanes annually, flash floods and landslides in the mountainous interior, and coastal erosion. Grid fragility remains a compounding factor in every event.
Live map — Puerto Rico
Loading live data… · Marker positions are approximate; severity is labelled in each popup. Sources: USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC.
Active alerts & recent events
Latest earthquakes
Near a particular city? Earthquake history near a place · disasters reported near a place · compare Puerto Rico's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Puerto Rico
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
Risk profile
Hurricane season June-November, peaking August-September. Earthquakes year-round, with an active sequence in the southwest since 2019. Flash floods and landslides during heavy rain. Coastal erosion and surge. Drought in the south.
Official emergency authorities
Disaster displacement in Puerto Rico
341 internal displacements
Largest single event: 341 from storm, beginning 12 August 2024.
A displacement is a movement, not a person: somebody forced from home more than once in a year is counted more than once. These are movements caused by disasters only — displacement caused by conflict is counted separately and is not included here.
| Hazard | Displacements in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Storm | 341 |
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Global Internal Displacement Database. IDMC publishes annually, so the latest year here is the latest they have finalised — not the current one.
What this site sees in Puerto Rico
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| US Geological Survey | 307 | Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) | none | Global, but deliberately selective: it alerts on disasters likely to need INTERNATIONAL response. Serious local flooding that a national agency handles alone will not appear here. |
| European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre | none | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| NASA FIRMS | none | Global, but it sees only what the satellite saw on its pass, and thick cloud hides fire. A quiet day here is not evidence that nothing burned. |
| NASA EONET | none | Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events. |
| WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) | none | Each warning comes from one country own alerting authority, so the scale is that agency scale and is not comparable between countries. Many agencies publish no coordinates, and those warnings are placed at the centre of the country rather than where the weather is - the area name is the real answer. |
| MeteoAlarm (EUMETNET) | none | Europe only. It publishes no coordinates at all, so every warning here is placed at the centre of its country and the area name is the only reliable indication of where it applies. |
| NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers | none | These two centres warn for the US and Canadian coasts and for the Pacific and Caribbean basins. The Indian Ocean and Mediterranean have their own warning centres, which are not read here. Their routine information statements - the ones that say there is NO tsunami danger - are deliberately not imported, so an empty tsunami list means no threat was issued, not that nothing was checked. |
| NOAA National Hurricane Center | none | The Atlantic and the eastern and central Pacific only. No typhoon in the western Pacific and no cyclone in the Indian Ocean or the southern hemisphere appears here; those come from GDACS and from national services. |
| ReliefWeb (UN OCHA) | none | Global, but it reports on humanitarian RESPONSE. It arrives days after an event rather than during it, and never functions as a warning. |
Not applicable here: US National Weather Service — Covers the United States only. It publishes nothing about any other country, so its absence from a country page is not an outage. ; USGS Volcano Hazards Program — United States volcanoes only - Alaska, Hawaii, the Cascades, Yellowstone, California and the Northern Mariana Islands. It says nothing about Indonesia, Iceland, Italy or anywhere else, so its silence about a foreign eruption is not a judgement about that eruption.
Major historical disasters — Puerto Rico
| Event | Type | Date | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 Hurricane Maria | Hurricane / Cyclone / Typhoon | Sep 20, 2017 | 3,059 |
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in Puerto Rico?
There are currently 1 monitored natural disaster events in Puerto Rico. The overall risk status is Low. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does Puerto Rico face?
Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017, which destroyed the electricity grid and left much of the island without power for months; excess-mortality studies later estimated around 3,000 deaths, far above the initial official count, making it a landmark case in how disaster deaths are counted. In late 2019 and early 2020 an earthquake sequence in the southwest damaged housing and closed schools.
When is the main natural disaster season in Puerto Rico?
Hurricane season June-November, peaking August-September. Earthquakes year-round, with an active sequence in the southwest since 2019. Flash floods and landslides during heavy rain. Coastal erosion and surge. Drought in the south. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Puerto Rico?
Official warnings for Puerto Rico are issued by NWS San Juan. The link is on this page. This site aggregates and reports; it does not issue warnings, and in an emergency the national agency is the authority.
What is the deadliest recorded natural disaster in Puerto Rico?
Of the events documented on this site, the deadliest in Puerto Rico is the 2017 Hurricane Maria (2017), with around 3,059 deaths. Puerto Rico official revised estimate 2,975 plus Dominica 65; direct-death counts far lower. This is drawn from documented records held here and is not a complete historical archive.
Where does this disaster data for Puerto Rico come from?
Data is aggregated from official sources including USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, ReliefWeb and national agencies. Every event links to its original source, and update times are shown on each record.
Data sources: USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC, ReliefWeb (UN OCHA). See data sources & attribution and methodology. This page does not replace official emergency guidance.