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Pre-storm conditions in Puerto Rico's water sector enhanced damage and slowed down recovery efforts

• Financial stress was an underlying legacy challenge to the resilience of water and wastewater systems in Puerto Rico.
• Puerto Rico's water infrastructure had a history of system depreciation, underinvestment, lack of maintenance, and incomplete monitoring.
• Disparities in the equity of provision of various water sector services, including drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater services, meant that communities recovered at different rates.

There are high interdependencies among the water sector and other infrastructure sectors

• The fragility of the electrical grid in Puerto Rico, the complete loss of electrical power, and its slow rate of recovery caused major disruption of the water and wastewater subsectors. Extensive debris created by Hurricane Maria damaged road networks and made the initial assessment of damage to water infrastructure and assets difficult and slowed down the distribution of emergency water services to some remote populations.
• The hurricanes strained the government of Puerto Rico's human capital. Response and recovery efforts in the water sector were limited by the size of the workforce of qualified water engineers and technicians.

The aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria highlighted vulnerabilities in Puerto Rico's water sector. Hurricane damage spanned Puerto Rico's water infrastructure, including drinking water, wastewater, stormwater and flood control, as well as its water resources. This damage was attributed to multiple causes: the preexisting vulnerability of the water sector infrastructure; direct damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria; and indirect disruption stemming from damage in other sectors, particularly the loss of electrical power. The recovery plan for the water sector in Puerto Rico involves not only repairing hurricane-damaged water infrastructure and systems but also fixing the significant legacy challenges in the water sector's infrastructure, operations, and governance.

This report details a framework for a hurricane recovery made up of 30 courses of action consistent with the government of Puerto Rico's priorities. These courses of action address key opportunities for enhancing resilience in Puerto Rico's water sector, which include upgrading the physical infrastructure, as well as asset management and operational systems, with the objective of developing systems that are better hardened against extreme events but also more flexible and efficient. In addition, building capacity of water sector management organizations and personnel can enhance efficiency, contingency planning, and the ability to take advantage of new technologies and practices. Improving situational awareness of water sector assets and developing performance metrics that can be tracked in real time can provide early warning of problems and accelerate emergency responses.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Prestorm Conditions and Operational Challenges

• Chapter Three

  Water Sector Damage and Needs Assessment

• Chapter Four

  Water Sector Recovery and Courses of Action

• Chapter Five

  The Way Forward: Observations on Enhancing Resilience to Future Disasters

• Appendix A

  Courses of Action