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A current challenge is to understand what are the legacies left by disturbances on ecosystems for predicting response patterns and trajectories. This work focuses on the ecological implications of a major hurricane and analyzes its influence on forest gross primary productivity (GPP; derived from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer, MODIS) and soil CO _2 efflux. Following the hurricane, there was a reduction of nearly 0.5 kgC m ^−2  yr ^−1 , equivalent to ∼15% of the long-term mean GPP (∼3.0 ± 0.2 kgC m ^−2  yr ^−1 ; years 2003–8). Annual soil CO _2 emissions for the year following the hurricane were  > 3.9 ± 0.5 kgC m ^−2  yr ^−1 , whereas for the second year emissions were 1.7 ± 0.4 kgC m ^−2  yr ^−1 . Higher annual emissions were associated with higher probabilities of days with extreme soil CO _2 efflux rates ( > 9.7 μmol CO _2  m ^−2  s ^−1 ). The variance of GPP was highly variable across years and was substantially increased following the hurricane. Extreme soil CO _2 efflux after the hurricane was associated with deposition of nitrogen-rich fresh organic matter, higher basal soil CO _2 efflux rates and changes in variance of the soil temperature. These results show that CO _2 dynamics are highly variable following hurricanes, but also demonstrate the strong resilience of tropical forests following these events.