Puerto Rico Recovery Sectors

Given the scope and scale of recovery planning—as well as the tight deadline for the Governor’s plan—HSOAC organized into sector teams that aligned with FEMA’s organizational response structure. Sector team were responsible for collecting and analyzing damage and needs information and developing and costing recovery actions in their respective areas of expertise. The teams’ data collection and analytic work is presented in sector-based volumes grouped under five overarching themes.

Please note that the sector-based approach is no longer being used for FEMA-4339-DR operations.

  • Connecting with Communities

    In the wake of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, local governments and community members pulled together to sustain one another, showing significant resilience in the face of disaster. Recovery efforts that build on this resilience—across all sectors—aim to make communities and municipalities stronger.

  • Economic Recovery and Resilience

    Puerto Rico’s unique status as a territory of the United States provides for both opportunities and challenges that have affected its economy. Given existing challenges, structural changes to local and federal policy are required to address chronic stressors to economic development and build resilience.

  • Human Recovery

    Education, health, and other social services are key to strengthening Puerto Rico’s resilience and prosperity in the future. In addition to rebuilding damaged public health, health care, and education infrastructure, long-term resilience will depend on strengthening social services provision, modernizing vital statistics record-keeping, and enhancing trauma-based mental health care.

  • Natural and Cultural Resources

    Puerto Rico is home to diverse natural resources that influence every aspect of local life, and a wealth of cultural resources that are integral to boricua cultural identity and sense of place, tourism, the crafts industry, and Puerto Rico’s economy.

  • Workers unload containers of shipping company Crowley from a barge after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria at the port in San Juan, Puerto Rico, September 26, 2017, photo by Alvin Baez/Reuters

    Physical Infrastructure

    Developing and maintaining resilient physical infrastructure is key to transforming Puerto Rico, both economically and socially. Energy, housing, public buildings, telecommunications and IT, transportation, and water, underpin individual and community well-being, both as unique systems and in interaction with one another.