Associated Press
A blackout hit nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate New Year’s, leaving more than 1.3 million clients in the dark. Officials said it could take up to two days to restore power.
The outage hit at dawn, plunging the island into an eerie silence as electrical appliances and air conditioners shut down before those who could afford generators turned them on.
“It had to be on the 31st of December!” exclaimed one man, who only gave his name as Manuel, as he stood outside a grocery store in the capital of San Juan, grumbling about the outage that coincided with his birthday. “There is no happiness.”
Nearly 90% of 1.47 million clients across Puerto Rico were left in the dark, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution. It estimated that power would be restored in 24 to 48 hours, conditions permitting.
Luma said in a statement that it appears the outage was caused by a failure of an underground power line, saying it is restoring power “in the quickest and safest way possible.”
A Luma spokesman told The Associated Press that the incident was under investigation.
A spokesperson for Genera PR, which oversees power generation, could not be immediately reached for comment.
With no idea when power would return, Puerto Ricans began to think ahead.
“I’ll go to my balcony. That’s where I’ll sleep,” Raúl Pacheco said with a resigned shrug, as the 63-year-old diabetic sat on a walker nursing an injured foot.
Julio Córdova, a municipal worker who was raking leaves on a nearby sidewalk, said he got dressed by the light of his cellphone and planned to buy candles.
“This affects me because I had plans. It couldn’t have been yesterday or tomorrow?” he said as he shook his head.
While blackouts are rare in Puerto Rico, the island continues to struggle with chronic power outages blamed on a crumbling power grid that was razed by Hurricane Maria, a powerful category 4 storm that struck the island in September 2017.
The system, however, was already in decline prior to the storm given years of lack of maintenance and investment.
Some Puerto Ricans took the latest outage in stride.
“They’re part of my everyday life,” said Enid Núñez, 49, who said she ate breakfast before work thanks to a small gas stove she bought for such events.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
7 comments
Hung Wiil
December 31, 2024 at 3:23 pm
This is outrageous and should be investigated. Miscreants should be brought to book.
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January 1, 2025 at 3:51 am
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Paul Passarelli
December 31, 2024 at 5:02 pm
If it weren’t a US possession, Puerto Rico would be just another third world banana republic island.
Corruption on the island runs as deep as the namesake ocean trench!
EARL PITTS AMERICAN
January 1, 2025 at 7:47 am
Good Morn ‘Ting Sage Patriots,
STAND BY FOR BREAKING NEWS:
1.) PR is a corrupt territory ran 100% by Dook 4 Brains Lefty politicians.
2.) There is actually no power outage down there in PR.
What we are seeing is a result of an on/off switch turned off by the corrupt political leadership of PR in colusion with The Democratic National Party of The USA.
America what Democrats are hopeing is our USA Congress will allocate Billions in emergency funding for PR and then PR’s corrupt politicians will keep 1/2 and send the other 1/2 to officials in the Democratic National Party of The USA.
Then the corrupt political leadership of PR will have the on/off switch turned back on and thank the USA.
IN CLOSING:
I, EARL PITTS AMERICAN, agreed to break this story because many of our Sage Patriot [AKA REPUBLICAN] politicans were concerned of the bad press they would get from our Fake News National Media accusing our Sage Patriot polititions of being raciest to the citizens of PR.
Thankfully I, EARL PITTS AMERICAN, am immune to the Fake News “Slings & Arrows” due to my ginormas “Bull Of The Woods” low hanging gonads.
Thank you, Sage Patriots,
EARL PITTS AMERICAN
James Carvall
January 1, 2025 at 8:45 am
Thanks for helping out by breaking this story Earl. Now we can stop this $hit Show.
This goes back to Kamalla having paid 8eyonce, 0pra, 8arak & others for showing up at her political events.
Had the American People been foolish enough to elect Kamalla her mis-use of campaign funds would have been covered up. And we would not be having this conversation.
Jimmy C.
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Paul Passarelli
January 2, 2025 at 2:38 pm
Not certain exactly how sarcastic this post is, but this part:
“… what Democrats are hopeing is our USA Congress will allocate Billions in emergency funding for PR and then PR’s corrupt politicians will keep 1/2 and send the other 1/2 to officials in the Democratic National Party of …”
Occurred to me as well, as I was reading the article. It’s not a stretch of the imagination considering how the hurricane relief was handled.