# Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was a Category 5 storm that slammed into Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, killing thousands and cutting power to roughly 3.4 million people. The disaster sparked a public feud between San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz and President Donald Trump, along with widely-shared political images, memes, and tweets that dominated online discussion of the federal response. ## Origin Maria intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in a matter of days, hitting sustained winds of 175 miles per hour and ranking as the tenth most intense Atlantic storm on record[4]. It made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, less than two weeks after Hurricane Irma had already knocked out power for about 80,000 residents on the island[1]. The meme thread actually preceded landfall. In the days before the storm arrived, users compared the name "Maria" to musical characters and traded name-based jokes. Once Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's power grid and left roughly 3.4 million people without electricity, the jokes gave way to grim political commentary[1]. - **Platform:** News media / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2017 ## Overview Hurricane Maria became a political flashpoint online almost as fast as it became a humanitarian disaster in Puerto Rico[1]. Before landfall, users made jokes about the storm's name by pulling in characters from The Sound of Music and West Side Story, which Heavy compiled in a September 19, 2017 roundup[4]. Once the storm hit and images of destruction reached the mainland, the tone shifted from wordplay to sharp criticism of the federal response. The most-shared material centered on Mayor Cruz's "we are dying here" mayday call[2] and President Trump's insulting tweets about her leadership. Reporters started calling Maria "Trump's Katrina," and a viral list of federal aid sent to Puerto Rico circulated widely before fact-checkers pushed back on its specific claims about helicopters, army field hospitals, and nuclear submarines. ## How It Spread Federal aid was slow to arrive. By late September, Puerto Ricans were telling NBC News that they had seen little to no military or FEMA presence, with one San Juan resident saying it looked "like a bomb went off"[1]. Mayor Cruz went on MSNBC and called the situation a "big S.O.S for anybody out there," pleading for the "red tape" to be ripped off "as if it were a band aid"[2]. Her comments framed the crisis as an American disaster the government was ignoring. Trump waived the Jones Act on September 28, then tweeted two days later that Cruz had "poor leadership ability" and that Puerto Ricans wanted "everything to be done for them," drawing rebukes from Cruz and retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré[4]. One year later, on September 13, 2018, Trump denied the roughly 3,000-death toll, claiming Democrats had inflated the numbers, a position Cruz publicly rejected on CNN[3]. ## How to Use References to Hurricane Maria online typically appear in political posts about Puerto Rico, federal disaster response, or callbacks to specific moments from the 2017 crisis, most often Mayor Cruz's mayday plea, Trump's "budget a little out of whack" quote, or the George Washington University death-toll figure of 2,975. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Hurricane Maria? Hurricane Maria was a Category 5 storm that devastated Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, and turned into a lasting political meme thanks to the slow federal response and the public feud between San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz and President Donald Trump[1]. ### Where did Hurricane Maria come from? The meme angle started with name-based jokes referencing The Sound of Music and West Side Story before landfall, which Heavy rounded up on September 19, 2017[4], then shifted to political outrage after the storm ripped through Puerto Rico[1]. ### What does Hurricane Maria mean? Online, Hurricane Maria came to stand in for arguments over Puerto Rico's treatment as a U.S. territory, and the phrase "Trump's Katrina" spread as shorthand for a mishandled federal disaster response[2]. ### How do you use Hurricane Maria? Most references to Hurricane Maria appear in political posts, criticisms of federal disaster response, or callbacks to Mayor Cruz's mayday call and Trump's insulting tweets about her leadership[2]. ### Is Hurricane Maria still popular? Active meme use faded after 2018, but the Trump-Cruz feud and the death-toll dispute still surface during hurricane-season coverage and political commentary about Puerto Rico[3]. ## References 1. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hurricane-maria-puerto-ricans-plead-more-federal-aid-devastated-island-n804671]() 2. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puerto-ricans-scramble-help-most-vulnerable-residents-supplies-dwindle-n805006]() 3. [https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/09/12/san-juan-mayor-trump-florence-hurricane-ac360-vpx.cnn]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/hurricane-maria]() 5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae96xf293Dc]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/hurricane-maria Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library