The Department of Transportation and Public Works informed that 16 bridges suffered damage after Hurricane Fiona struck, but a Center for Investigative Journalism investigation found that this number is wrong and that, from those 16, nine bridges had their strength and stability seriously or severely affected prior to the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico on September 18.
Aside from the public housing management business, for which federal authorities are investigating Walter and Eduardo Pierluisi Isern, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi’s cousins, the Pierluisi Isern and Pierluisi González-Coya families have more than 20 active companies in real estate, consulting and business and real estate management.
Since Hurricane Fiona struck September 18, the government of Puerto Rico has held more than a dozen press conferences, but in none has it provided information that helps victims and survivors of gender-based violence get specialized aid they need during the emergency, when they are most vulnerable.
An audit by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found irregularities in the payment of $17.1 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency disbursed to nonprofit organizations for post-disaster work in Puerto Rico.
The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday confirmed it will see a case that the Puerto Rico Fiscal Control Board filed regarding an access to public information lawsuit that the Center for Investigative Journalism has won against the entity in all prior court decisions.
The tool is not yet working to its total capacity because hospitals have not completed the training. About 50% of the information on deaths is still collected manually.
Communities around the irrigation channels, whose conditions worsened due to the flooding caused by Hurricane Fiona, will continue to be at risk because there are no immediate solutions to prevent obstructions during extraordinary rainfall events, experts and the government of Puerto Rico told the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, in Spanish). Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) set aside $62 million in Hurricane María recovery funds for permanent work projects for this network of irrigation channels, the process is still in the design stage, one of the steps required by the federal agency to allocate the funds and, eventually, disburse them. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) submitted three permanent works projects to FEMA in October 2021 for the three irrigation districts it manages in Patillas in the South, Isabela in the North and Lajas in the southwestern coast. These structures belonged to the former Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority (PRWRA), created in 1941 to manage the reservoirs used for electricity generation. Irrigation channels are part of that system and now provide water for agriculture in those areas.
Hurricane Fiona’s first gusts were barely blowing when dozens of mayors had to improvise solutions. When they arrived at the locations that the government of Puerto Rico certified as shelters, they found they had no water tanks or power generators. At that time, a copy of Act 88 sat on a desk.
