Puerto Ricans have ample experience with hurricanes, but the storm approaching yesterday brought an added level of anxiety. The island’s dire financial straits have left essential public works, from power plants to retaining walls, weakened by years of scrimping on maintenance, the New York Times reported today.
Puerto Rico in Distress
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As Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms ever recorded, aimed for Puerto Rico and other islands throughout the Caribbean, residents scrambled yesterday to rush out of flood zones, stock up on the last available water, food and gas, shutter their homes and brace for what is now a Category 5 hurricane, the New York Times reported today.
Puerto Rico’s already frail economy faces a fresh test this week, as the bankrupt U.S. territory’s financial overseers try to force a defiant governor to furlough public workers, the single biggest block of employees on the island, Reuters reported yesterday.
Puerto Rico’s federal oversight board yesterday sued Governor Ricardo Rosselló, saying that he has no authority to reject planned employee furloughs and pension cuts the board says are necessary to pull the bankrupt U.S. territory from economic crisis, Reuters reported. Escalating a long-running power struggle between the federally appointed board and the governor, the lawsuit asks a U.S.