After Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017, the local government established an initial recovery plan, which included priorities for long-term recovery projects.

In this report, the authors identify ways to reduce recovery project delays that are due to supply chain issues. The authors also detail approaches to sustain gains from recent and future investments in rebuilding the physical infrastructure.

Rebuilding Infrastructure in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Exploring Options to Accelerate the Recovery Supply Chain and Sustain Economic Gains

Adam C. Resnick, Joie D. Acosta, Chelsea Kolb, Lawrese Brown, David Gill, Ellen M. Pint, Candice Miller, Rahim Ali, Devin Tierney, Alicia Revitsky Locker, et al.

ResearchPublished Jul 17, 2025

Recovery efforts are still ongoing eight years after two Category 5 hurricanes, Hurricanes Irma and Maria, hit the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) in quick succession in 2017. The hurricanes caused significant damage to the USVI’s society, infrastructure, and economy.

In 2018, the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands (GVI) established an initial recovery plan, which included priorities for long-term recovery projects. To fully recover from the damage caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the GVI will need to execute an estimated $15 billion in recovery work—which is a major challenge for a territory with a nearly $4 billion annual economy. Given the extensive damages, many of the recovery projects are at a scale that does not regularly occur in the USVI, and many of these recovery projects will need to be done simultaneously or be carefully phased.

To help the GVI identify innovative ways to accelerate recovery efforts, RAND researchers identified ways to reduce delays to ongoing and future recovery projects that are due to lead times and other supply chain issues. The researchers also uncovered approaches that the GVI can use to sustain gains from recent and future investments in rebuilding the physical infrastructure.

In this report, the authors describe the approach and findings from their efforts and build on the strong body of prior work, including a prior study by RAND, and a robust set of recovery planning documents developed by the GVI.

Key Findings

Recovery is lagging in part because of limited government capacity

  • Gaps in the GVI’s management, fiscal, supply chain, and workforce capacities are afflicting the pace and feasibility of the USVI’s recovery. Addressing these gaps is a priority if the GVI wants to accelerate the pace of recovery.
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) policy would need to change to allow the GVI to budget for up-front salaries and indirect costs to hire the management staff needed to accelerate recovery spending. Without additional management staff, the pace of recovery is unlikely to change.
  • Supply chain delays are likely, not because of port and shipping capacity but because of small economies of scale and difficulties with importing materials.
  • The USVI Office of Disaster Recovery is in the process of establishing a super project management office to manage $1 billion bundles of recovery projects.

Even if recovery reconstruction accelerates, the cost of ongoing operations and the maintenance of new facilities are unsustainable

  • The USVI could gain nearly 5,000 jobs if the GVI expends $720 million annually for recovery efforts, with the most job gains being construction related.
  • Recovery expenditures could generate approximately $50 million annually in tax revenues, on average, over the next 15 years.
  • Annual sustainment costs for all planned facilities will be approximately $80 million per year when all construction is completed. These costs will gradually increase as funds are spent on recovery projects.
  • After 2026, facility sustainment costs will likely exceed tax revenue, and a different source of funding would be needed.

Recommendations

  • Up-front funding—i.e., funding not tied to projects—is needed to augment limited government staffing and support holistic and integrated recovery planning and management that starts immediately after a disaster and extends the full length of recovery (e.g., ten years).
  • New recovery models are needed to allow small and insular locations like the USVI to right-size infrastructure rather than rebuild infrastructure at its current level.
  • FEMA should develop a deployable system to enable more-holistic and more-centralized recovery data management across federal funding sources to enable spending of federal funding sources without duplication.
  • The GVI could improve the supply chain’s efficiency by using innovative construction methods and centralized purchasing. Innovative construction methods, such as modular construction, might help improve efficiencies and economies of scale in the reconstruction process for certain types of infrastructure. Purchasing materials in bulk quantities through a central procurement office could help lower per-unit costs.
  • The GVI could leverage a more holistic view and more-centralized recovery data management to increase its options for sourcing, scheduling, sequencing, and importing recovery materials. Grouping recovery projects by geography, FEMA Public Assistance category, types of required building materials, or project costs might help projects better share overlapping resource needs and thus improve efficiencies.
  • Close monitoring of the super project management office and the project bundles it manages is needed to course correct if the office is not on track to achieve its aims.

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Citation

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Resnick, Adam C., Joie D. Acosta, Chelsea Kolb, Lawrese Brown, David Gill, Ellen M. Pint, Candice Miller, Rahim Ali, Devin Tierney, Alicia Revitsky Locker, Keenan D. Yoho, Jeremy M. Eckhause, and Tom Lagerman, Rebuilding Infrastructure in the U.S. Virgin Islands: Exploring Options to Accelerate the Recovery Supply Chain and Sustain Economic Gains. Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3081-1.html.
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This research was sponsored by FEMA and conducted in the Disaster Management and Resilience Program of the RAND Homeland Security Research Division.

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

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