Even before Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, one of the most frequently mentioned signs of a generalized crisis was the steady decline of the island’s population. Since 2015, reports that 122 Puerto Ricans were leaving every day and that over 177,000 had already left in the preceding four years led observers to increasingly describe Puerto Rico as “la isla que se vacía” (“the emptying island”) (Sin Comillas 2015; Figueroa Rodríguez 2017). A New York Times headline minced no words: “Todos se van” (“Everyone is Leaving”) (Healy and Ferré-Sarduní 2017). Immediately after Maria, as an estimated 2,000 people departed daily, (New York Times Ed. Board 2017), Business Insider was equally totalizing; it called the exodus a “death spiral” (da Costa 2017).