Islandwide blackout hits Puerto Rico as residents prepare for Easter weekend
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — An islandwide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the largely Catholic residents of the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend, officials said.
All 1.4 million customers on the island were without power, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told the Associated Press. “The entire island is without generation,” he said.
Meanwhile, at least 78,000 customers were without water, with officials warning that power probably won’t be fully restored for an additional 48 to 72 hours.
“This is unacceptable,” said Josué Colón, the island’s energy czar and former executive director of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority.
A blackout has hit nearly all of Puerto Rico as the U.S. territory prepares to celebrate New Year’s.
It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years. Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón, who was traveling, said officials were “working diligently” to address the outage.
Thousands of Puerto Ricans were fuming over the latest outage, with many renewing their calls for the government to cancel the contract with Luma and Genera PR, which oversees generation of power on the island.
Dozens of people were forced to walk next to the rails of the rapid transit system that serves the capital, San Juan, while scores of businesses including the biggest mall in the Caribbean were forced to close. Professional baseball and basketball games were canceled as the hum of generators and smell of smoke filled the air. Traffic became snarled and police officers were deployed to busy intersections.
By late Wednesday afternoon, some 5,000 to 7,000 customers had their power restored, although that number is expected to fluctuate. Those without generators crowded around grocery stores and other businesses to buy ice.
Daniel Hernández, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said at a news conference that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon, during a time when the grid is vulnerable because there are not many machines regulating frequency at that hour.
Electric power has been restored to nearly all affected customers across Puerto Rico after a blackout plunged the U.S. territory into darkness.
Verónica Ferraiuoli, acting governor and secretary of state for Puerto Rico, said White House officials reached out to local officials and have said they are available if needed.
The last islandwide blackout occurred on New Year’s Eve.
Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017 when Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild.
The grid already had been deteriorating as a result of decades of inadequate maintenance and investment.
Coto writes for the Associated Press.
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