[dustinmr]

In addition to what everyone else said, about a year ago I was chatting with an engineer who was in San Juan bidding on work with PREPA. One of the things he pointed out was that the entire grid is ancient. And aside from the typical problems that makes, virtually none of the physical pieces can be purchased of the shelf because they've been replaced by new designs everywhere else.

Every replacement part need requires that PREPA either have the part machined specially, or they need to purchase a production run of whatever the part is.

The conversation left me with the impression that its likely less expensive to simply replace large sections or even re-engineer than to incrementally improve the existing infrastructure.

[Vivtek]

Fun fact: the use of federal disaster funds for any replacement other than as-built components is specifically forbidden by law, because Congress doesn't want disaster victims to profit from a free upgrade. And that is why PREPA components have to be machined specially.

[dustinmr]

I can’t really speak to that specifically. But I can say it doesn’t really fit with either my government contracting experience nor what that particular engineer was explaining to me at the time.

In general, it matters very much how the money is appropriated for whatever you’re going to do with government money. What you might not be able to do under one particular program may not be prohibited at all under another. Or, some official may be empowered to waive some requirements. I would expect, for example, that FEMA might be able to waive the requirement you speak of, if, for example, they found it was less expensive, or even just convenient for the government.

And in terms of what the specific person I was talking with had to say, his bid on work with PREPA included proposals based on getting funding for upgrades as he had previously done in Florida after another hurricane. Which seemed reasonable when he explained. Basically, Florida Power & Light got grants from FEMA to do various upgrades to their grid because the upgrades were likely to save the feds money in a future hurricane. Or at least, that was his explanation. And it fits with my experience in DC early in my career as well.