It was 8:12 p.m. on Saturday, May 25, 2024, when Jorge Ramírez González and María L. Carrero Orsini, both 74, realized they would once again have to spend time and money cleaning the mud from their home. Just hours earlier, the house where they raised their three daughters in the El Maní sector of Mayagüez had flooded when the canal next to their property overflowed after heavy rain.
The couple felt frustration and unease, emotions that resurface every time their home floods due to the rising waters that affect El Maní, a community on the Mayagüez coast in the Sabanetas neighborhood, whose residents have low incomes according to the latest U.S. Census data. Villa Ramírez Street, where Jorge and María live, is the most prone to flooding.
The Ramírez Carrero family claims they live at the mercy of the weather, as flooding in the area has worsened. The frequency with which the street overflows depends on the inches of rain that fall, but since the drainage capacity there is poor, it doesn’t take a torrential downpour to cause a flood.
The anxiety the couple feels every time the sky clouds over wasn’t always there. Although water sometimes accumulated on their street, the problem worsened after the expansion of PR-64 more than a decade ago, the couple asserts.

Photo by Ricardo Arduengo | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
The road construction added to other commercial developments on the periphery that destroyed wetlands, altered the area’s hydrology, and contributed to the “impermeability” that El Maní suffers from. This term refers to the loss of the soil’s ability to naturally absorb water, in this case, runoff and rain, explained Dr. Walter Silva Araya, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and Surveying at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (known in Spanish as RUM).
“With each new development, the impermeability of the community has increased,” said Silva Araya. “This trend is what has increased the water [that accumulates].”
El Maní exemplifies how disorganized planning raises the vulnerability levels of roads like PR-64 during extreme rain and drought events, which are expected to increase due to the climate crisis. An investigation by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) found that this situation endangers road users and primarily the area’s residents. The flooding, which worsened in El Maní since the start of the PR-64 bypass construction in 2008, resulted from ignoring the historical experiences of the communities.
In Puerto Rico, nearly 15% of municipal and state roads are located in flood-prone areas, with at least a 1% chance of flooding each year, according to an analysis by the CPI using data from the Land Use Plan and the Recommended Base Flood Elevation Maps from the Puerto Rico Planning Board.
The El Maní community was established in the late 1950s. According to a study by the RUM led by Dr. Edwin Asencio Pagán, in the 1970s, the Puerto Rican government granted property titles over plots in the sector to families identified as economically disadvantaged. With approximately 1,200 residents, according to the 2020 census data, it was declared a Special Community in 2001. According to the Integral Development of Special Communities of Puerto Rico Act, for a community to be considered as such, it must meet parameters like low socioeconomic level, inadequate basic infrastructure conditions, high unemployment rates, high illiteracy rates, low education levels, hazardous environmental conditions, or deteriorated housing.
Who is Prepared to Live Like This?
Since the PR-64 roadworks began in 2008, the Ramírez Carrero home has flooded at least twice a year, the couple told the CPI.
Ramírez González and Carrero Orsini said they don’t need the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority (ACT, in Spanish), to certify that the road construction worsened the flooding on their street because their experience led them to warn, more than a decade ago, public corporation’s officials and contractors, that the flooding would worsen with the construction. They did so in person and by writing. They weren’t heard.
“When they built the road, and we saw the problems we were going to have, we went to complain to a government engineer,” said Ramírez González, unable to recall the name of the person he spoke with. “She, already annoyed, told me that we were protesting too much without seeing the finished project. I told her, ‘You are absolutely right. When you finish the project and deliver it, you will go to Arecibo or Ponce to do a project of the same kind, and we will be left with the problem, which is what has happened since 2010,'” he recounted.
During public hearings held in 2004, community residents expressed concern about the possibility that the works would increase flooding levels there, according to the environmental assessment document. Responding to the neighbors’ concerns, the ACT promised not to raise the road. According to documents that the CPI reviewed, raising its level would worsen flooding in the community, the project’s designer, Carlos M. Rexach Soto, explained.
The ACT assured, in the project’s environmental assessments, that 80% of El Maní residents “interviewed” agreed with the PR-64 expansion, but it did not specify how many people were interviewed to land at that percentage.
The two ACT engineers in charge of the project were Ivelisse Pérez Márquez and Yaritza Cordero Bonilla. The project also involved the firm Roberto Rexach Cintrón & Associates and construction company Tamrio, according to two ACT and Court Administration files the CPI accessed.
Engineer Cordero Bonilla, the project administrator and ACT employee, confirmed to the CPI that, at the beginning of the project, she spoke with representatives of the mentioned engineering firm about the residents’ concern with the PR-64 expansion. Rexach Soto responded that, regardless of the project’s design, the community was already in a flood zone. So, the work continued.
Ultimately, “the project’s scope was not focused on solving the area’s flooding problems,” although its design, Rexach & Cintrón & Associates stated in one of its letters to the ACT, would attempt to reduce flooding. But the problem worsened.
“That’s a lie,” responded Ramírez González to questions about whether the community always flooded, as the engineers claimed when interviewed. “Now, with any amount of rain, it floods. A hurricane doesn’t have to come for it to flood,” he assured.

Photo by Ricardo Arduengo | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
The ACT Ignored Warnings
Since September 2011, when it rained, the water level on the road prevented crossing and left residents isolated, warned Wilfredo Ramírez González, a neighbor of El Maní, in a letter to the ACT.
This was before the construction project was completed. “They still have time to correct the problems they are causing us, depriving us of the right to freely enter and exit our homes and causing our properties to lose value,” Ramírez González claimed at the time.
The truck driver, born and raised in the community, assured the CPI that his property had only flooded twice before the PR-64 expansion; once when the Río Grande de Añasco overflowed due to the fierce rains of Hurricane Eloisa in 1975 and another in 1997, during Hurricane Georges.
In an interview with the CPI, the Mayagüez Municipal Emergency Management Office supervisor, Alfredo Vargas, explained that PR-64 always flooded “whenever it rained.” However, he claimed that some municipal improvements to PR-64 have reduced flooding in the area, although they have not been completely remedied, according to social media posts by the community’s residents.

Photo taken from Facebook
A 2010 expropriation lawsuit related to the project, which is still active, alleges that construction company Tamrio — which the ACT contracted— blocked the opening of some drainage pipes on PR-64 during its expansion more than a decade ago. This caused one of the sector’s families’ homes to flood and become uninhabitable. The Villarrubia Ramírez family claims the agency knew the property would flood.
The ACT’s 2015 report on the flooding problem also includes complaints from engineer and farmer Enrique Calderón, who alleged to the Puerto Rico Office of the Citizen’s Advocate that his land in El Maní began to flood up to three feet high after the project was completed, damaging his crops.
The then Director of the ACT’s Construction Area, Noel E. Rosario Hernández, requested the public corporation’s Interdisciplinary Pre-Planning Group to evaluate the flooding problem on PR-64, particularly between kilometers 0.3 and 0.4.
His main suggestion was to “dredge the canal” from a bridge upstream on PR-64 to its connection point with the Caño Boquilla. Also, to establish a recurring maintenance program for the canal to minimize the flooding problem, but the report acknowledges that, “even in optimal conditions, the canal does not have the capacity to control runoff from extraordinary rain events.”

Photo by Ricardo Arduengo | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
The expansion was part of the Western Bypass project, led by the ACT and DTOP—an ambitious road initiative that began more than 20 years ago to alleviate congestion on PR-2 and offer tourists a scenic coastal route.
Former DTOP Secretary Rubén A. Hernández Gregorat highlighted the improvements to the section where residents live on Villa Ramírez Street and included them within the infrastructure transformation the area would undergo as part of the XXI Central American and Caribbean Games, held in Mayagüez in 2010. The CPI attempted to contact Hernández Gregorat without success.
According to environmental assessments, the Western Bypass project was divided into multiple phases, including road widening, paving, signage, landscaping, drainage system construction, and improvements to make PR-2, PR-64, and PR-341 more pedestrian-friendly. The expansion of PR-64, which connects PR-2 with PR-341 in the El Maní community, cost $11.6 million, according to Juan Olmeda Reyes, the ACT’s press officer.
A Growing List of Problems
Over the years, both residents and the Mayagüez municipal administration have identified several issues contributing to flooding, including excessive sediment buildup in the tributary canal during heavy rains, poor drainage, and the canal’s inability to handle water flow. Additionally, residents note that the road’s slope, instead of directing rainwater away from the community, funnels it toward their homes.
The slope was intended to channel water to the drains leading to the tributary canal, according to the evaluation report the ACT drafted in 2015. However, the same report acknowledges that the canal lacks the capacity to capture rainwater during extraordinary events, such as troughs and storms. However, residents’ experience has been that the canal cannot capture the water even during moderate rain events, so runoff accumulates on public roads and in the community.
The report acknowledges: “Unfortunately, when the canal is full, the culvert and drains are also full to capacity, and water accumulates on the road and immediate surroundings.”
Ivelisse Pérez Márquez, director of the ACT's Regional Office in Mayagüez during the project, told the CPI that her agency could not alter the canal as part of the project because doing so was the responsibility of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA, in Spanish).
Mayagüez historian Javier Cesaní Román explained to the CPI that the canal was designed by sugar landowners between the 1940s and 1950s at the recommendation of the Puerto Rican government. The project was paid for with private funds.
According to the Digital Cadastre of the Municipal Revenue Collection Center (CRIM, in Spanish), the Caño Boquilla is adjacent to 12 private lands owned by different owners.
Since the canal's construction was a private investment, the DRNA is not obligated to maintain it, according to Act 55 of 2004. The law does not specify which government agency is responsible for maintaining the channel but rather depends on the work the DRNA wants to do in coordination with the Municipality and the landowner.
The DRNA's press officer at the time of the report, Joel Seijo Rivera, said the responsibility for cleaning streams, creeks, and canals falls on the municipalities and that the agency has no cleaning project for the El Maní creek or the Caño Boquilla.
None of the project's environmental studies reviewed by the CPI anticipated that sustained rain events, beyond troughs, storms, and hurricanes, would cause adjacent houses to flood.
During a joint interview with the CPI, the two project engineers agreed that the canal needed to be cleaned periodically due to its poor water capture capacity during extraordinary rain events. In recent years, the Municipality has overseen the task of cleaning.
"When the canal is not in condition [clean], the road takes on more water," said Pérez Márquez.
Engineer Cordero Bonilla explained that both the ACT and the DTOP cleaned the canal once the PR-64 expansion project was completed in 2012. Since then, the Municipality has overseen its cleaning, said Mayor Jorge L. Ramos Ruiz.
The Municipality identifies construction failures
The mayor of Mayagüez explained that two years ago, during one of the canal's cleanings, he found an accumulation of soil obstructing the water flow, which, in his opinion, could have worsened the flooding in the sector.
The material was discovered in an area that once housed a temporary bridge used during the development of a mitigation farm, intended to offset damage to the adjacent wetlands as part of the road project. The CPI attempted to visit the farm, but it remains inaccessible. According to local residents, the site has been completely neglected.
He also said municipal employees found that the PR-64 drainage system had not been completed, contributing to road water accumulation. The mayor said the municipal administration replaced the drains with larger ones at a cost of about $5,000.

Photo by Luis Joel Méndez González | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
For Ramos Ruiz, redesigning the road to raise its level is the only permanent solution to the flooding problem. However, engineering firm Roberto Rexach Cintrón & Associates ruled out raising it from the start because they believed it would worsen it instead of alleviating the flooding. Even more water would accumulate, according to an interaction between the company and the ACT.
Meanwhile, engineer Pérez Márquez assured the CPI that there was nothing to repair because the project was "well done" and was carried out according to the plans, passed final inspection, and approved by the Federal Highway Administration.
"We cannot lose sight of the fact that this area is flood-prone and that the water table is higher than the level of their backyards," she emphasized.
Engineer Silva Araya also opined that raising the road level will not remedy the problem. Instead, he urged exploring the possibility of designing retention ponds and a wider tributary canal that flows into the sea, although it is complex and costly, or commissioning a drainage study to reduce flooding on the properties.
An Important Resource
The Caño Boquilla Natural Reserve is one of the few brackish estuarine swamp forests in Puerto Rico, explained Dr. Julia S. Mignucci Sánchez, co-founder of Mayagüezanos for Health and the Environment, an organization responsible for co-managing the grounds of this important ecosystem with the DRNA. In addition to helping control soil erosion and being a filtration zone for contaminants in the aquifer recharge water, the reserve serves as a flood control system.
The environmentalist also links the flooding in El Maní to the destruction of wetlands for the construction of shopping centers and roads. These lands were used decades ago for sugarcane cultivation and remained wet.

Photo by Ricardo Arduengo | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
Professor Silva Araya explained that the PR-64 expansion is not the sole cause of flooding in El Maní. The construction of structures such as hospitals, shopping centers, housing, barriers, and roads on the periphery has altered the natural flow of water to the Caño Boquilla in Mayagüez and towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Silva Araya mentioned that the construction in 2013 of the Veterans Hospital on PR-2, a few minutes from El Maní, changed the course of a body of water that crossed the land where it was built and altered the sector's hydrology.
Multiple channels surround El Maní, and when their waters overflow, they end up in the plain that separates the community from the Western Plaza shopping center.
Sacrificed Hydrology at the Cost of "Development"
The Western Plaza shopping center was built in the 1990s, a 10-minute walk from El Maní, on wetland terrain that helps reduce flood risk. Bartolomé Carrero, a community resident, assured that the back of El Maní began to flood after that construction. He, who is also a business owner, attributed it to the development's environmental impact on the area.
"That never used to happen here," recalled Carrero, a resident of the area for at least six decades.
In the 1990s, about 46 acres of wetlands were destroyed for the development of Western Plaza, decades before the PR-64 expansion, according to data from the CRIM Digital Cadastre and the National Wetlands Inventory of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This case is an example of the poor planning the community has been exposed to, according to Ruben García Vaines, vice president of the nonprofit organization Mayagüezanos for Health and the Environment.
"The road development in 2010 for the Central American Games is an example of many other projects that have impacted the area's hydrology (...) When you build a road or any development, you can alter the flow or hydraulic movement of the waters.”

Photo by Ricardo Arduengo | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
Edwin Asencio Pagán, founder of Proyecto Esperanza, which educates residents in vulnerable coastal communities in western Puerto Rico, said that most residents in El Maní are 54 years or older, and nearly half lack property insurance on their homes. This makes them more vulnerable to flooding due to climate change threats.
The university professor also mentioned that, in recent years, there has been an exodus of community neighbors and concern among those who remain. This is due to the government's slow response, the residents' lack of economic resources, and even the fear of being relocated, as has happened in the past.
"When these atmospheric events come, the impact will always be greater," he expressed.
According to Ana Navarro Rodríguez, who worked as a water quality specialist in the Sea Grant program at the University of Puerto Rico and volunteers with Mayagüezanos for Health and the Environment, the increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, both rain and drought, will worsen flooding in El Maní.
For Brenda Ramírez Carrero, 52, it is distressing every time her parents' home, María Carrero and Jorge Ramírez, floods. Her parents have to shelter in a refuge they built on the second level of their property every time water enters their house.
Ramírez Carrero has devoted time and effort to advocating for solutions to the flooding problems. Since 2012, residents of Villa Ramírez Street have successfully pushed the Mayagüez Municipality to clean the canal and complete the drainage system’s construction. However, they have yet to secure a meeting with the ACT or DTOP to address the risks they face when it rains.
Data journalist Gabriela Carrasquillo Piñeiro contributed to this story.
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