--- title: Puerto Rico: How Power Outages Can Affect Mental Health description: Hurricane Maria has caused a massive power outage in Puerto Rico. Researchers say the effect on mental health could be severe. canonical: https://time.com/4968766/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-power-outage/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-04T19:27:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:48.110Z article:section: Health og:title: How Power Outages Can Affect Mental Health og:description: Hurricane Maria, which caused blackouts in Puerto Rico, may take a mental toll og:url: https://time.com/4968766/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-power-outage/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2a39a94b8d9714a7/6988e07bab6d776d766b00f2/puerto-rico.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Puerto Rico Faces Extensive Damage after Hurricane Maria og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Power Outages Can Affect Mental Health twitter:description: Hurricane Maria, which caused blackouts in Puerto Rico, may take a mental toll twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2a39a94b8d9714a7/6988e07bab6d776d766b00f2/puerto-rico.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Power Outages Can Affect Mental Health > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Puerto Rico's Death Toll From Hurricane Maria Rises to 45 [Watch (HLS stream): Puerto Rico's Death Toll From Hurricane Maria Rises to 45](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Re0H0g9T.m3u8) (1:29)  _Published 2017-09-18. The official death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico has increased to 34 from 16, the U.S. territory's governor said Tuesday._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) and [Karl Vick](https://time.com/author/karl-vick/) Oct 4, 2017 7:27 PM UTC  Heydee Perez, age 29, and her son, Yenel Calera, age 4 have not received any aid one week after Hurricane Maria. The roof of their home is gone and they have very little to eat. Heydee Perez, age 29, and her son, Yenel Calera, age 4 have not received any aid one week after Hurricane Maria. The roof of their home is gone and they have very little to eat. Carolyn Cole—LA Times/Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) and [Karl Vick](https://time.com/author/karl-vick/) Oct 4, 2017 7:27 PM UTC It’s been two weeks since [Hurricane Maria](http://time.com/money/4952092/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico/) swept through Puerto Rico, plunging it into darkness. Today, around 95% of Puerto Rico’s [electric grid remains down](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/2/16403236/puerto-rico-economy-utilities-power-prepa-disaster), and that outage could last for months. Being without power comes with obvious physical health risks, especially for [hospitals](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/puerto-ricos-humanitarian-crisis-nowhere-more-obvious-than-at-hospitals/2017/09/28/a201bc0a-a47b-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14%5Fstory.html?utm%5Fterm=.df2fc3bb8baf) and [nursing homes](http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-puerto-rico-healthcare-20170930-story.html), which rely on power for dialysis and oxygen machines, refrigerated insulin medication and more. Being in the dark impairs safety and security, too. But blackouts also take a lasting toll on people’s mental health, experts say. This often-ignored issue is slowly gaining more recognition in disaster response. Dr. Shao Lin, a professor in the department of environmental health sciences at the University at Albany and her research team are studying how power outages impact community health, including mental health. Her [2016 study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27087495) on the impact of Hurricane Sandy found that impacted areas of New York experienced extended blackouts and disruptions to public transportation and health care. The impact on mental health was substantial, she concluded; there was a significant increase in emergency room visits for substance abuse problems, psychosis, mood disorders and suicides throughout the city. **MORE:** [‘We Deserve More Help.’ Puerto Ricans Rely on Each Other While Waiting for Aid](http://time.com/4962669/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-trump-aid/) The longer the power outage continued—Manhattan largely recovered in five days and Nassau County was without power for about two weeks—the greater the increase in emergency room visits. Communities with lower socioeconomic status felt the greatest toll. Bronx county—where [30% of residents live in poverty](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/bronxcountybronxboroughnewyork/AGE275210)—experienced a 782% increase in risk for mental health emergency room visits during the blackout after Hurricane Sandy. “New York City prepared well for Sandy,” says Lin, who expects to see “severe problems” in the mental health of people in Puerto Rico throughout the power outages. **MORE:** [How the U.S. Turned Its Back on Puerto Rico](http://time.com/4960647/us-turned-its-back-on-puerto-rico/) There are many reasons why mental health events increase during power outages, including stress from the shutdown of necessities like food storage, transportation, life support devices and more. It can also increase loneliness and cut people off from one other. “A power outage cuts out communication and can cause social isolation,” says Yi Lu, a graduate research assistant in environmental health sciences at the University at Albany who works with Lin. “Especially for groups like the elderly, isolation can cause mental stress.” Hyun Kim, an assistant professor in the division of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota who has studied the long-term impacts of Hurricane Sandy and the World Trade Center attacks, says the stress of the chaos—like living in the dark—can deteriorate mental health. “Such extreme living conditions lead to fear and anxiety, which are often contagious among the affected communities, and this phenomenon disproportionately impacts those who are exposed to more severe living conditions,” he says. Even after power eventually returns, the risk for residual effects like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will remain high, Kim says. “Experiencing or witnessing first-hand serious injuries or death caused directly or indirectly caused by power outage, can lead to PTSD, which has life-threatening consequences of its own,” he says. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, [studies](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276074/) found that 30-50% of people who survived suffered from PTSD. After Hurricane Sandy, more than 20% of residents reported PTSD, 33% reported depression and 46% reported anxiety, Kim[ wrote in a recent article](http://fortune.com/2017/09/06/hurricane-harvey-health-risks/) for Fortune Magazine. When it comes to the response in Puerto Rico, Kim says first responders should be cognizant of the mental health risks for communities, adding that there’s a “pressing need” to raise public awareness about how mental health may be affected after a disaster. “Given the seriousness of the situation in Puerto Rico, the first responders should be periodically monitored for their mental health,” he says. “Once an affected person is made aware of the possible risks, mental disorders can be detected and treated. Unfortunately, however, mental health stigma and prejudices are often the biggest barriers to this problem.” In the meantime, responders are doing what they can to ease the shock of the blackout for people in Puerto Rico. “We take light for granted,” says David Darg, vice president of international operations for Operation Blessing International, which is helping distribute thousands of collapsible lamps that are charged by sunlight and provide up to 12 hours of light throughout Puerto Rico. The lamps are meant to provide portable light to families and help improve neighborhood security. “We go into these dark places at night, and after you distribute about a hundred, the whole place lights up.” Yentil Ramirez, a 26-year-old living in the La Perla neighborhood of Puerto Rico, has been living in her five-person home without light since the storm hit, and has been using one of Operation Blessing’s solar lights. “It’s a pretty simple design, but it actually works” she says. The mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, helped distribute the lamps, and held one aloft as a symbol of hope at a news conference the following day. “You should have seen La Perla last night,” she said during the Sept. 29 press conference. “Not only did you see hope—they took charge of the streets again.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4968766/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-power-outage/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4968766/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-power-outage/"},"headline":"How Power Outages Can Affect Mental Health","datePublished":"2017-10-04T19:27:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:48.110Z","description":"Hurricane Maria has caused a massive power outage in Puerto Rico. 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