ORLANDO, Fla. — Puerto Ricans on Wednesday were bracing for Dorian — and for some, that meant packing up to move away from the island to Florida.

Two years after Hurricane Maria, the U.S. territory still has not fully recovered from the devastation. Residents there were already expecting Dorian to cause massive power outages from a weak power grid, said Josephine Balzac, assistant professor in the department of social entrepreneurship at Rollins College in Winter Park.

“Some people have already left the island," she said. “They don’t want to deal with it again. And so it just creates a very vulnerable situation for everyone again.”

As many as 40,000 Puerto Ricans made Florida a permanent home after Maria, according to Balzac, who is from Puerto Rico. Many people back on the island are still living in homes with blue tarps covering roofs damaged by the hurricane.

On Wednesday, an 80-year-old man in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, preparing for Dorian was killed when he climbed onto his roof to clean a drain and fell, CNN reported.

Joseph Rivera moved from Puerto Rico to Central Florida six years ago and now works to create economic opportunities for Puerto Ricans both in Florida and back on the island. Much of his family, including his daughter, are directly in the path of Dorian.

“Now it’s going to hit more of San Juan and the eastern nautical coast, so now she’s going to be taking the heavy hit," he said.

FEMA has already sent hundreds of first responders to Puerto Rico ahead of Dorian. It isn't as strong as Maria was when it hit the island, and Rivera thinks the emergency response in place will be able to provide a better response than before.

“I think they’re much better prepared this time," Rivera said.

After Hurricane Maria, the city of Orlando set up an assistance center for Puerto Ricans who fled the island for Central Florida, and although that’s now closed, workers there continue to provide support. They say they are ready to assist anyone who now may need to move to Central Florida temporarily or permanently.

But Rivera doesn’t think that’s going to happen this time around.

“Depending on the effects, it may be frustrating that it happened again, but it’s going to be far less impact. So we don’t foresee that to happen significantly," Rivera said.

As residents on the island cleared out grocery stores of water and food, Balzac urged Florida lawmakers to come up with a hurricane mitigation plan for those who come to the state to escape Dorian.

“There’s so much instability there, and I believe all human beings want to have security, want to feel safe,” Balzac said. “And this is why we’ve seen such a massive migration of Puerto Ricans.”