Since Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico officials have been working to upgrade the infrastructure and help residents weather storms like Fiona, which hit the island earlier this week.

Despite billions of dollars in federal money being poured into upgrades on the island — mainly in rebuilding and infrastructure upgrades — experts say many problems caused by Hurricane Maria five years ago still exist.

Officials say most of the issues won’t be seen until the flooding recedes and rescue teams can get in and assess the damage.

In photos of Waleska Semidey's Puerto Rican home, six feet of water can be seen flooding the streets after Hurricane Fiona brought 100 mph winds and heavy rain.

“This is the mudslide I was telling you about,” says Semidey, who lives in Melbourne for part of the year. “This is a river behind peoples’ houses. This is another road that has flooded. For 80 mile an hour winds, it did a lot of damage.”

Semidey runs a kayak tourism business in Puerto Rico and was just there a month ago, wrapping up the busy summer season.

“These are the kayaks that my nephew is going through with my cousin.,” she said, showing another photo.

But now those kayaks are being used to survey the damage. Semidey helped lead local relief efforts during Hurricane Maria in 2017, and now she has become a point person for families here trying to reach loved ones in the middle of this devastation.

She says power outages and spotty cellphone service make it a challenge.

“Hurricane Fiona has given sort of a cruel test to see what’s going on,” said Fernando Rivera of University of Central Florida's Global Puerto Rico Research Hub, who also noted that the storm is revealing the good and bad of the rebuilding after Maria.

More than $28 billion in FEMA money has been allocated for the island to fund more than 10,000 infrastructure improvement projects, which include everything from reconstruction of roads, to rebuilding and strengthening the power grid and improving drainage.

“Where the damage is severe, that might take longer, and that tells you that in those vulnerable areas, still the grid is very vulnerable to these types of weather events,” Rivera said.

Even though Hurricane Maria improvement projects have been approved, officials say thousands still are not complete or have not been started.

Speaking from her garden, which is filled with herbs from her homeland, Semidey said she hopes Puerto Rico will heal better than it was before.

“Watching it all unfold in front of us, five years after Maria, we are going through that again,” she said.

Rivera said people should have enough supplies to last 10 days after a storm. After that, the real consequences of not having power and water will be seen, allowing emergency workers to better know where relief help should be focused.