After hurricane María, a surge in domestic violence – and demands for change

When Catherine lost power after hurricane María last September, she feared for her life.

For days she and her family spent up to eight hours waiting in the scorching sun ­– and sometimes the rain – to buy ice to keep their food from spoiling or gas to run their generator. Often, there was nothing left to buy. That stress, combined with lost work and essential income in María’s wake, meant that the emotional and sexual abuse long doled out by her husband only got worse after the storm, she says.

“We used to argue once a week, maybe,” says Catherine, sitting in an emergency women’s shelter where she and her child have been living for the past five months. “After María, he was exploding [at me] three, four times a week.”

When the courthouse near her home opened up three weeks after the storm, she went. She got a restraining order, a police escort home to retrieve some essentials, and was taken to a safe house.