Puerto Rico plunged into darkness attributable to New 12 months’s blackout

Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness early Tuesday morning attributable to an influence outage throughout many of the island.

The reason for the outage stays below investigation, however preliminary findings level to a fault in an underground line, in response to Luma Vitality, the island’s foremost electrical energy distributor. Full restoration of service might take between 24 and 48 hours. » said the company on X.

Based on the New York Occasions, solely 13 % of the island’s 1.4 million prospects had energy as of 10:00 a.m. AST (1400GMT).

An hour later, energy was restored to some areas, in addition to to the San Juan Municipal Hospital, Luma mentioned.

The New 12 months’s Eve blackout prompted renewed calls from elected officers and residents to handle the unincorporated U.S. territory’s ongoing energy issues, which have persevered since Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The island can not proceed to assist an power system that so typically fails its residents, Jenniffer González-Colon, Puerto Rico’s present consultant within the US Congress and Puerto Rico’s new governor, wrote on X.

Energy outages proceed to have an effect on Puerto Rico’s economic system and high quality of life, she mentioned.

On Fb, the present governor, Pedro Pierluisi, demanded solutions and options from the 2 foremost electrical energy corporations, Luma and Genera.

Tons of of hundreds of residents have been affected by energy outages this 12 months. An influence outage in June left about 350,000 prospects with out energy due to rising temperatures, and greater than 700,000 prospects misplaced energy after Hurricane Ernesto in August.

As they woke as much as one other day with out energy, Puerto Ricans expressed their frustration to U.S. media.

“They’re a part of my each day life,” Enid Núñez, 49, advised the Related Press of the outages.

Puerto Rico’s energy grid was below pressure even earlier than Hurricane Maria devastated the island. U.S. authorities funding has helped strengthen the grid, facilitate rebuilding initiatives after different pure disasters, and make different vital infrastructure enhancements.

However implementation has been incomplete attributable to numerous elements, similar to issues beginning building and necessities from the Federal Emergency Administration Company to authorize using a part of the funds, in response to a February 2024 report. report of the USA Authorities Accountability Workplace.

“Inexcusably, the facility grid has nonetheless not recovered from the harm attributable to Hurricane Maria,” Mark Levine, president of New York’s Manhattan borough, wrote on X.

New York Metropolis is dwelling to the most important Puerto Rican neighborhood within the continental United States.

“That represents 3.5 million Americans,” he wrote. “We owe them so significantly better.”