Cleveland, Ohio is no stranger to harsh winters, but the city faces little risk from drought, wildfires, and hurricanes—natural disasters expected to worsen as the planet warms. PHOTO BY ANGELO MERENDINO, CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES
By Stephen Starr, National Geographic, September 18, 2023
Before September 2017, Dianiz Roman and Wilfredo Gonzalez had never given a moment’s thought to leaving Aguadilla, the couple’s hometown in western Puerto Rico. But after Hurricane Maria struck that month, everything changed.
Both of their workplaces, a funeral home and a gas station, were destroyed in a storm that killed around 3,000 people and upended life on the island.
“We were struggling; trying to get supplies, water, and food,” Gonzalez recalls of the months following the hurricane. There was nothing left to do, they say, than to try their luck thousands of miles north in Buffalo, New York, where Gonzalez’s sister had moved a year earlier.
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