Puerto Ricans have ample experience with hurricanes, but the storm approaching on Wednesday 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.

“This is not an event that is occurring in the Netherlands, where they’re ready for it and they have a strong economy,” said Miguel A. Soto-Class, president of the Center for a New Economy, a research group on the island. “This is an event happening on a very poor island that’s been in a depression for the last 10 years.”

Puerto Rico effectively sought bankruptcy protection in May, burdened with about $123 billion in bond debt and unfunded pension obligations. Its case is being handled in federal court under a special new law, called Promesa, because the existing bankruptcy law excludes Puerto Rico.

Under Promesa, Puerto Rico’s finances must be supervised by a federal board until its house is back in order, a process that is expected to take years. Relations between the board and the elected government of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló were contentious even before Hurricane Irma, with the governor first agreeing to a five-year austerity plan, then reversing course and threatening to go to prison rather than accepting the entire package.

In particular, the governor has refused to furlough government workers, and to reduce the pensions of retired government employees by an average 10 percent. The fiscal oversight board has sued the governor, asking the court to order him to carry out the entire austerity plan. The furloughs were supposed to have begun on Sept. 1.

Despite the legal dispute, the board’s executive director, Natalie Jaresko, said in a statement Wednesday that the board was “working closely with Governor Rosselló to coordinate support for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the storm.”

“We have also reached out to the federal government to activate Title V of Promesa, which allows the board to work with agencies to accelerate the deployment of grants and loans following a disaster,” she said.

On Tuesday, Governor Rosselló urged residents to move into hurricane shelters, and began evacuations on the island’s eastern and northern coasts, which are prone to flooding. Shopkeepers on the island said they were sold out of essential provisions and had never seen residents prepare so thoroughly for a storm.

To the east of Puerto Rico, another financially challenged jurisdiction, the United States Virgin Islands, was also battening down. Gov. Kenneth Mapp ordered a 36-hour curfew to reduce the risk of injuries and looting.

The United States Virgin Islands has a far smaller population than Puerto Rico, but on a per-capita basis its debt is much bigger, and even before the hurricane it was struggling economically. Governor Mapp has said that a default is out of the question, and has maintained that the territory is trying to reverse a crisis of confidence that arose there after Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy.