Puerto Rico has been plunged into darkness after a power grid failure caused blackouts across much of the island.
The outage occurred in the early hours of Tuesday, the last day of 2024.
While complete blackouts are relatively rare on the island, blackouts in general have become a regular occurrence in the years since Hurricane Maria destroyed the power grid in 2017.
Puerto Rico’s governor, Pedro Pierluisi, tried to reassure the island of 3.2 million people that power would be restored soon. He attributed the “massive blackout” to a “critical failure” in the power grid.
“We can inform you that work is already underway to restore service to the San Juan and Palo Seco plants. We are looking for answers and solutions”, he wrote on social networks.
The New Year’s Eve outage knocked out power to nearly 1.27 million households, out of a total of 1.5 million customers, according to private power company LUMA, which is responsible for maintaining the power grid.
As of 11:45 local time (15:45 GMT), LUMA reported that only 13.5 percent of its customers had access to power.
The company explained in a social media post that the source of the outage initially appeared to be “a fault in an underground line”. This, in turn, caused an outage across the island at around 5:30 a.m. local time (9:30 GMT).
“The cause of the defect remains under investigation”, writes LUMA in its post.
“We have already started the restoration process for some customers and the full process will take between 24 and 48 hours, conditions permitting.”
Puerto Rico’s power grid has been a source of frustration for residents for years, even inspiring pop star Bad Bunny to write an ode to the island called El Apagón, or The Blackout.
The Puerto Rican musician has been an outspoken critic of LUMA, a joint venture held by Canadian and American companies.
Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also weighed in on New Year’s Eve on Instagram Stories: “This is how you spend New Year’s Eve in Puerto Rico, without electricity. Normal.”
LUMA took over the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), a government-run energy provider, in 2020 after the latter filed for bankruptcy.
But LUMA itself has faced numerous protests, with concerns raised over the cost of its services and the nature of the company’s contract with the government. Some say his terms are skewed in favor of LUMA, with few protections for everyday Puerto Ricans.
Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, who will succeed Pierluisi on Jan. 2, has indicated she will consider appointing an “energy czar” to review LUMA’s actions and consider other energy providers.
Puerto Rico’s power grid crisis hit a breaking point in 2017 when Hurricane Maria, a powerful Category 4 storm, slammed into the island.
Not only was it the deadliest storm to hit Puerto Rico, it also destroyed the island’s aging power grid, creating further life-threatening conditions. Power outages have been chronic after it.
U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat of New York, a Dominican American, weighed in on the legacy of Hurricane Maria as he called for reforms.
“Since devastating Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s power grid has remained costly, unstable and unreliable, failing the Puerto Rican people at every turn,” Espaillat wrote.
The United States considers Puerto Rico an unincorporated territory, and Espaillat called on outgoing US President Joe Biden to do more to shore up the island’s ailing infrastructure.
“Despite the billions of dollars committed by the Biden administration for reconstruction, most of the funds remain unused, leaving Puerto Rico to face another year in the dark. Bold and immediate action is needed to address this crisis before it is too late,” he said.
But some residents who spoke to The Associated Press Tuesday morning expressed resignation about the continued power outages.
“They are part of my daily life,” Enid Núñez, 49, told the news agency as she ate breakfast.
She had cooked the food on a gas stove, bought just for such situations.
