A Year After Maria, PR Government Attorney Admits In Court Island Has No Hurricane Response Plan

Officials in Puerto Rico have been saying for months that they are prepared should another hurricane strike their island, even one as big as Hurricane Maria, which made landfall with devastating fury last fall.

But on Tuesday afternoon, an attorney for Puerto Rico's government admitted in a San Juan courtroom that, in fact, the island's emergency management agency does not yet have a document outlining a hurricane-specific response plan.

"The agency is still working on those plans," the attorney, Tania Fernández Medero, told a judge overseeing a lawsuit seeking to get the government to release the plans. She said the government was still assessing proposals from private companies, "so that it can hire people who specialize in producing those types of emergency response plans. So, as of today they aren't available. As of today, they don't exist."

It was a stunning admission given that, early last month, Governor Ricardo Rosselló and other officials announced that their newly overhauled plan was finally complete, and that residents of the island should feel secure knowing that their government was prepared.

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https://www.npr.org/2018/10/30/662345336/government-lawyer-says-puerto-ricos-hurricane-response-plan-does-not-exist