Hurricane Maria was a partly manmade disaster. Hundreds of families told us what really happened.

The project is a year-long collaboration among three newsrooms (Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, Quartz and The Associated Press.) I built the database, handled the data collection automation pipeline, designed and built the bilingual website, including all the visual elements.

Our project compelled the Puerto Rico governor to admit that the death toll was much higher than what he or then-president Trump admitted initially. The project won the top prizes in various data journalism competitions. It was a personal reaffirmation that data and visual journalism could lead to social impact in ways in which traditional ways of storytelling couldn’t.

The project won a number of awards including “First Place” in 2018 Philip Meyer Awards, and “Investigation of the Year” (project description) in the global 2019 Data Journalism Awards, a Bronze in Page Design from 2018 SND award.