Hurricane María

What began as an emergency response after Hurricane María turned into years of delays, mounting costs and questions about whether the rebuilt line can withstand future storms.

Since January, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo has asked the agency for progress reports and details on how much money has been invested in an Arecibo project to rehabilitate sewer infrastructure, pumps used for a water bypass system, and contracted security services from September 2017 through December 2025.

As Puerto Rico prepares to host the World Baseball Classic in March 2026, many communities across the archipelago are still waiting for the parks where children and teenagers play the sport to be brought back into shape.

The island’s Department of Education is losing students, in part, due to a cycle of constant school relocations, deteriorating facilities, and shortened schedules from noon to 5 p.m., which are stopgap measures that fail to address the core problem: an unrepaired infrastructure, despite the availability of funds.

The outlook is grim. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced that its secretary will now personally review any grant or contract award exceeding $100,000 before the funds can be committed, the agency told the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

Verdict: Misleading

For thousands of people without a physical address, FEMA post-disaster aid was delayed or denied. In Loíza, impoverished women and Black people have been the most affected by nor having that residential identity.

An analysis by CPI and The Post found that despite ample federal funding, less than 1 percent of the FEMA and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) money slated for the island’s public water utility corporation since 2018 has been set aside to buy generators for water pumps. Local officials instead relied on a patchwork supply of emergency units but failed to get many in place ahead of the storm and supply them with enough diesel.

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.

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 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.

The day before Hurricane Fiona made landfall, Petra Rodríguez tried to turn on the power generator she had just bought, but it arrived damaged. She needed electricity to power the electric pump with which she feeds her 93-year-old mother, who is bedridden, and to operate the adjustable bed and inflatable mattress, which keep her from […]

The inequity in the federal response to both disasters becomes more evident if one compares that nine days after Harvey hit Texas, FEMA approved $141.8 million in individual assistance for victims, while nine days after María, that federal agency barely approved $6.2 million for survivors in Puerto Rico.

On the fifth anniversary of the devastation caused by Hurricane María, Puerto Rico woke up Monday with a new catastrophe whose dimension remains to be seen as there are still bands of rain expected from Hurricane Fiona. 

Of the 242 community aqueduct systems legally registered in Puerto Rico as franchises, 31% have not requested recovery funds for the damages caused to infrastructure by Hurricanes Irma and María in September 2017, according to data from the Government’s Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency (COR3). Although the reasons are different for each community […]

The area in the switchyard where the Central Costa Sur fire occurred, which caused the general blackout last Wednesday, should have been renovated four months ago, in December 2021, according to the original infrastructure plan through which the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) will access $10.7 billion in federal recovery funds. But, after LUMA’s […]