Puerto Rico Planning Board

Few places in the United States face flood risk on the scale that Puerto Rico does. In the span of a few years, the island has weathered Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Fiona, and a series of earthquakes, and communities across all 78 municipalities have had to rebuild. For the team that administers the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in Puerto Rico, those events are a constant reminder of why floodplain regulations matter and why compliance has to be done well.

The Puerto Rico Planning Board is the agency designated to oversee the NFIP for the island. Luis Lamboy, Director of the Board's Office of Geology and Hydrogeology, serves as State NFIP Coordinator and the point of contact between the Government of Puerto Rico and FEMA Region 2. Andya Aponte Acosta is an engineer and NFIP specialist on his team. Together they provide guidance, education, and technical assistance to all 78 of Puerto Rico's municipalities, coordinate directly with FEMA, and carry out the inspections that keep the island's communities in compliance.

The Challenge: "A Lot of Manual Effort"

Before partnering with Forerunner, no single system held a complete record of an inspection. Inspectors recorded their findings on paper forms, took photographs on separate cameras, tracked cases in spreadsheets, and handled follow-up over email. Much of the most time-consuming work happened after they returned from the field.

"Inspectors spent a considerable amount of time transferring information from handwritten notes into reports, matching photos with each inspection, and preparing documentation," Andya explains. "It was a much slower process, and maintaining consistency across inspections required a lot of manual effort."

The same fragmentation showed up whenever FEMA asked for documentation. "Responding to FEMA requests often meant searching through multiple files, emails, folders, and photo archives," says Luis. "Preparing reports took much longer because the information wasn't centralized."

Bringing the Field Into One Application

The team first encountered Forerunner at the ASFPM annual conference in Utah. They were not looking to replace the tools they already relied on. The office works in GIS, Survey123, FEMA's Map Service Center, Elevation Certificate databases, Microsoft Office, and the permitting systems used across the municipalities, and all of that would stay in place. What they needed was a better way to get an inspection from the field into the record.

"What stood out immediately was how intuitive it was, especially for field work," Andya says. "Being able to collect data, photographs, GPS locations, and inspection information in one application eliminated many of the manual steps we previously had."

Forerunner became the primary platform for collecting field information and managing inspections, complementing the systems the office already used. The change reshaped how the team works day to day:

• Complete records from the field: Each inspection syncs back with its photographs, GPS location, notes, and findings already attached. More than 64,000 field photos are now linked directly to the inspection they belong to, giving the team objective evidence of site conditions whenever FEMA or another agency requests supporting documentation.
• A single review process: Once an inspection is synced, the case moves directly into review, where staff evaluate compliance, determine follow-up actions, generate correspondence, and maintain the full inspection history in one place.
• AI assistance on the paperwork: Inspections can now flag potential violations, and Forerunner's AI drafts the "Absence of Permit" letters that inspectors previously wrote by hand after every visit. Staff review each letter before it goes out. "It allows us to spend more time evaluating cases rather than preparing documentation," Andya says.
  

The ROI: From a Handful of Inspections to 11,000 a Month

Luis and Andya's team spent the first weeks of the rollout learning the platform, training inspectors, and refining the inspection forms with feedback from the field. Once inspectors were comfortable with the platform, adoption accelerated quickly. The office went from close to zero inspections in Forerunner in February to roughly 11,000 inspections a month by May, while keeping documentation consistent across every one of them.

"Once everyone became comfortable with the system, adoption happened very quickly," Andya explains. "Inspectors realized they could complete inspections much faster. That allowed us to scale from just a handful of inspections to thousands every month while maintaining consistent documentation and quality."

For Luis, the biggest difference has been efficiency: less administrative work, better documentation, and information that is far easier to access. The surprise was how readily inspectors embraced the platform once they saw how much time it gave back.

The Future: One Platform Across Programs

The office adopted Forerunner for floodplain management. Once it was working, extending it to code enforcement was a natural next step rather than a new project.

"Once we saw how successful it was for floodplain management, it became clear that the same platform could improve code enforcement inspections as well," Andya says. "The inspection process shares many similarities, and using one system creates consistency, better documentation, and much greater efficiency across programs."

Luis expects that expansion to continue as new AI and reporting capabilities are introduced, with the same goal the office started with: high-quality documentation, less time spent on paperwork, and better decision-making for floodplain management throughout Puerto Rico.

Leading the Way

When asked what she would tell another agency considering Forerunner, Andya's advice is simple: "Forerunner helps modernize inspections without making the process more complicated. It improves documentation, increases consistency, reduces paperwork, and provides much better visibility into ongoing work."

For Luis, the motivation behind the work is the same as it has always been. "These regulations protect real people and communities," he says. "We've seen the consequences of flooding firsthand, so our goal is to help communities rebuild safer and become more resilient."