There are the usual parking options at the international airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. But as you leave the arrivals terminal today you’ll see a new fenced-in area of loose gravel with row upon row of vehicles, some looking like they might have been there for a while.

They have. These aren’t cars parked by travellers recently departed for a spring jaunt or business trip. They are cars people have left behind. “It happens all time, people are leaving. They come to the airport and abandon them like that,” lamented Max Dubuche, who runs a taxi and tour service on the island. “They know they are not coming back.”

Eight months after Hurricane Maria strafed every last acre of Puerto Rico, destroying its grid and plunging swathes of it into darkness for months on end, some degree of normality is returning. Trees stripped bare are timidly showing their new leaves and, in spite of another near island-wide blackout in April, most areas are finally reconnected to electricity and water.

Power lines can be restitched and hotels reopened, but for whom? For the tourists starting now to venture back on cruise ships and jetliners, perhaps. For wealthy mainlanders eyeing bargains along its sparkling beaches, maybe. But for many Puerto Ricans it’s already too little too late. Maria was the straw that broke the camel’s back and they’re gone. Or they will be soon.

The exodus from Puerto Rico traces back to 2005, when a recession took hold that never let go. The Pew Research Centre estimates that between 2005 and 2013 more than 500,000 people left the island for the mainland – 5 per cent of its population. Nearly 250 public schools closed in the same period. When it became apparent it had accumulated more debt than it could ever pay back a federal budget-oversight board was foisted on it and an austerity regime imposed.

Marchers in San Juan on May Day last week protest austerity measures imposed by the federal fiscal board (Reuters)

But then came Maria and the population drain took on a whole new momentum. Because Puerto Ricans are US citizens, though with limited voting rights if they are on the island, keeping track of the exact numbers is tricky. But according to a report released by City University of New York’s Centre for Puerto Rican Studies (Centro), the island will lose an additional 470,000 residents by the end of next year as a direct consequence of the storm. Already there are more Puerto Ricans living in the 50 states than there are in Puerto Rico.

To those left behind it’s a grim picture. The majority of those fled or fleeing are the young and educated or established professionals like teachers, doctors, engineers and nurses. To make the island, which is a commonwealth of the US – neither a fully-fledged state nor a country under its own flag – viable again, you need to expand its workforce and tax base. The opposite is occurring. An additional 467 schools are set to close by 2022. Samaritan hotlines reported a 246 per cent increase in suicide attempts just between November 2017 and January 2018.

Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Show all 20 1 /20 Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Kenney shelters under the blade of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit preparing to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit takes off behind Crew Chief Alexander Blake and his fellow soldiers during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Morovis, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew member Bynum stands in tropical rain as a HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit prepares to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot Chris Greenway receives a hug from a woman thanking him for water as he works with the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Verde de Comerio, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A man carries a case of water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Alexander Blake from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit loads water into a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo Reuters Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field to avoid lightning during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Manati, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents hold their hands aloft to signal that they need water as UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade fly past during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Tropical rain splashes on a runway as HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit wait for weather to clear during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Pilot Eldwin Bocanegra Torres speaks with residents isolated by landslides in the mountains after unloading water and food from a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents stand in front of wind-damaged trees as they wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico The contents of a home are seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Thomas looks out of the window of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit, loaded with relief supplies, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A message written on the rooftop is seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Humacao, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in San Sebastian, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado, who is from Puerto Rico, looks for a landing spot for a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Boys carry water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, who is from Puerto Rico, speaks with residents as he helps during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents peek through a fence at helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit that had parked in a locked field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Lares, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Perhaps more would have held on if the federal government’s response had been different. If Donald Trump hadn’t chucked paper towels into the crowd when he visited here and thought it appropriate; if anything like the resources rushed to hurricane victims in Texas and Florida last year had also come to Puerto Rico. Generators, roof tarps, satellite phones, fuel. If they hadn’t been made to feel ignored like foreigners even though their passports say they’re Americans.

But is the emptying out of Puerto Rico happening by design? Are darker forces at work? We had a not dissimilar debate after Katrina, thirteen years ago. Were so many of the black poor being deliberately displaced and relocated in Texas, to leave a healthier, less burdened New Orleans behind? A whiter New Orleans?

I’m no conspiracy theorist but two colliding phenomena happening in the US are worth considering. First, the anti-immigrant wave. Trump is still pursuing his Muslim travel ban and assails daily a caravan of asylum-seekers that crossed Mexico from Honduras and El Salvador and is now huddled against the border in Tijuana. On Friday, 50,000 Hondurans who have been allowed to live and work in the US since 1999 were told they must be gone in two years.

At the same time, just-released data shows the US with a startling 3.9 per cent jobless rate, the lowest in almost two decades. In tight labour markets, employers traditionally turn to new immigrants to keep the wheels turning, legal and also illegal.

You see the conundrum. An inconvenient reality for Trump and his supporters comes into view. So thank heavens for the Puerto Ricans suddenly flooding in, mostly to Florida but actually to every state in the union, bar Alaska. Industries of all kinds are courting them, from meatpacking plants in South Dakota to hotels desperate to fill summer vacancies in Disneyland and Dallas.

Schoolkids scream with joy as electricity returns to their school in Puerto Rico

After Katrina struck, they physically put folk onto buses and deposited them in the Astrodome in Houston. Many never returned. That couldn’t have happened after Maria, right? Actually it did. This time Fema, the disaster aid agency, chartered planes and cruise ships to get people off the island and gave many of them hotel vouchers to stay on the mainland once they arrived.