Officials demand answers as crews work to restore power after another Puerto Rico blackout

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Crews scrambled to restore power to Puerto Rico on Thursday after a blackout hit the entire island the previous day, affecting the main international airport, hospitals and hotels filled with Easter vacationers.

The outage that began around midday Wednesday left 1.4 million customers without electricity and more than 400,000 without water. More than 958,000 customers, or 65%, had power back by Thursday night, while 89% of customers had water restored. Officials expected 90% of customers to have power back within 48 to 72 hours after the outage, although 200,000 clients were left without power again on Thursday afternoon when one power plant failed twice.

''We are still in a precarious situation. This is old, fragile equipment," said Gov. Jenniffer González, who cut her weeklong vacation short and returned to Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening.

She said it would take at least three days to have preliminary information on what might have caused the blackout, which snarled traffic, forced hundreds of businesses to close and left those unable to afford generators scrambling to buy ice and candles.

''This is a shame for the people of Puerto Rico that we have a problem of this magnitude,'' the governor said.

González warned that the boiler of one power plant was not functioning and would take one week to repair, which could affect power generation next week, when people return from vacation.

It's the second massive blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months. The previous one happened on New Year's Eve.

Government under pressure to cancel energy firm contracts

''Why on holidays?'' griped José Luis Richardson, who did not have a generator and kept cool by splashing water on himself every couple of hours.

The roar of generators and smell of fumes filled the air as a growing number of Puerto Ricans renewed calls for the government to cancel the contracts with Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, and Genera PR, which oversees power generation.

González promised to heed those calls.

''That is not under doubt or question,'' she said, but added that it's not a quick process. ''It is unacceptable that we have failures of this kind.''

González said a major outage, like the latest one, causes an estimated $215 million revenue loss daily.

Ramón C. Barquín III, president of the United Retail Center, a nonprofit that represents small- and medium-sized businesses, warned that ongoing outages would spook potential investors at a time when Puerto Rico urgently needs economic development.

''We cannot continue to repeat this cycle of blackouts without taking concrete measures to strengthen our energy infrastructure,'' he said.

Many also were concerned about Puerto Rico's elderly population, with the mayor of Canóvanas deploying brigades to visit the bedridden and those who depend on electronic medical equipment.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Vega Alta opened a center to provide power to those with lifesaving medical equipment.

Wednesday night was difficult for many, including 62-year-old Santos Bones Burgos.

''I spent it on the balcony,'' he said, adding that he was trying to get some fresh air.

At some point, he fell asleep and recalled waking up at 5 a.m. to a neighbor yelling, ''The power is back!''

Among those unable to sleep was Dorca Navarrete, a 50-year-old house cleaner who said it was too hot. ''Last night was horrible,'' she said. "I woke up with a headache.''

When she opened her eyes, she saw light and thought it couldn't possibly be the sun at that hour. Then a smile spread across her face when she realized it was from the light she had left on in a room the day before.

What caused the blackout?

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years.

Officials are looking into whether several breakers failed to open or exploded. González said.

Another possibility is that overgrown vegetation affected the grid, which, if true, should not have happened, said Josué Colón, the island's energy czar and former executive director of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority.

He noted that the authority flew daily to check on certain lines, something he said Luma should be doing.

Colón said Luma also needs to explain why all the generators shut down after there was a failure in the transmission system, when only one was supposed to go into protective mode.

Pedro Meléndez, a Luma engineer, said an investigation is ongoing. He said in a news conference Thursday that the line where the failure occurred was inspected last week as part of regular air patrols to check on more than 2,500 miles worth of transmission lines across the island.

''No imminent risk was identified,'' he said.

Daniel Hernández, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said Wednesday that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon, a time when the grid is vulnerable because there are few machines regulating frequency at that hour.

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 a lack of maintenance and investment under the state's Electric Power Authority, which is struggling to restructure $9 billion in debt.

On Jan. 9, Puerto Rico's representative in Congress, Pablo José Hernández, joined by legislators including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sent a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright calling for the release of federal funds slated for the installation of rooftop solar and battery storage in Puerto Rico. The money is meant to help those whose disabilities or medical conditions require a power connection.

Puerto Rico's governor also has repeatedly called for those funds to be released.

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