Almost 200,000 of 1.5 million customers had electricity restored Thursday afternoon, after the country went dark late Wednesday following a fire at a power station that knocked out the entire grid, according to officials.
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“We all want the system to be back online”, the governor said. It has also undermined the operations of public and private agencies and left without water service about 340,000 customers.
Nearly a third of Puerto Rico’s population remained without electricity this morning after a fire at a power station yesterday caused a blackout. The outage occurred after two transmission lines, with power running up to 230,000 volts, failed, the Electric Power Authority said. “The system is not created to withstand a failure of this magnitude”. Padilla said transitioning to natural gas power will lower the island’s electricity bills, help the environment and boost their economy.
Many Puerto Ricans expressed doubts that power would be restored quickly, saying the economic slump has affected basic government services.
It was unclear how much damage the fire caused or where the power company would obtain the money to fix or buy new equipment. They are facing a $9 billion debt and officials say they are seeking more revenue to update what they say is old equipment.
“I assume complete responsibility”, Garcia said, adding, “Everyone knows that the company’s maintenance problems began decades ago”.
Padilla had declared a state of emergency after the power outage. All those fires were extinguished and no one was injured, officials said.
The blackout knocked out traffic lights, snarling the island’s roads.
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The island’s top official repeatedly said that the power failure, which left the island practically paralyzed, was due to a problem that could not have been avoided, noting that many people had to wait 48 hours in NY to recover their electric service after a blackout there years ago. Elsewhere, people crouched around power outlets at generator-powered supermarkets and malls to charge cellphones.
