Hurricane Maria Relocation

Using aggregated cellphone data and following very strict data privacy standards, data analytics company Teralytics mapped the migration patterns in and out of Puerto Rico from August 2017 to February 2018 from a sample of 500,000 Puerto Ricans. They found that 407,465 Puerto Ricans in their sample left the island and 359,813 returned in that timeframe, leaving nearly 50,000 Puerto Ricans on the US mainland. They could show exactly when they left, where they went, and when (or if) they returned to the island, based on the de-identified cell phone data. Teralytics mapped the US states and counties where Puerto Ricans in their sample chose to relocate.