Semi-submersible offshore drilling rig moored at the former U.S. Navy waterfront at Roosevelt Roads, Ceiba, Puerto Rico. Captured by drone in August 2018 as a 360-degree aerial panorama. The rig was one of several idle drilling units laid up at the base’s deep-water piers from 2016 onward after their owner lost its contracts. A yellow containment boom circles the hull and a crawler crane is working on the quay. Part 1 of the Roosevelt Roads After Closure series.
Roosevelt Roads After Closure is a series of aerial captures made in August 2018 at the former Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Ceiba, on the east coast of Puerto Rico. The Navy commissioned the base in 1943 and closed it on March 31, 2004, after which most of the 8,650 acres passed to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for redevelopment. These captures were made eleven months after Hurricane Maria, so some of the damage shown is storm damage on top of fourteen years of vacancy. The series records what was still standing at that point, including piers, hangars, housing, the hospital, and the airfield, along with the oil rigs laid up along the waterfront. Nothing was staged or cleaned up. Conditions have changed since 2018; military aircraft resumed operating from the airfield in late 2025.