“This is a very serious event”, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said, noting that the outage also shut off water service for about 340,000 people.
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According to ABC News, about 75 percent of 1.5 million homes and businesses served by the power utility had electricity restored by this morning.
But even at some major chains in the capital city of San Juan, the generator has just enough power to turn on the lights in the lobby, while rooms are left in the dark. Many Puerto Ricans dragged mattresses out to balconies and porches to spend the night outside, doing what they could to ward off mosquitoes in the still air.
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Almost 370,000 of the 1.5 million homes and businesses served by the power utility had power back by late Thursday. “We’re working hard to restore power to our other customers”.
“Puerto Rico is not prepared for something like this”, said Celestino Ayala Santiago, who slept in his vehicle so he could have some air conditioning to escape the heat.
The Electric Power Authority said investigators were trying to determine what caused the fire that broke out Wednesday afternoon. It apparently knocked out a transmission line serving the broader grid.
APPHOTO CGPR101: A transit police officer directs the flow of traffic at an intersection in San Juan, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, after a massive blackout hit Puerto Rico Wednesday afternoon, leaving at least 1.5 million people without power overnight and into the following day.
Puerto Rico, home to 3.5 million American citizens, is trudging through an economic crisis, burdened by $70 billion of debt and rampant migration as residents flock to the US mainland.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Cheers erupted as lights slowly began to flicker back on across Puerto Rico overnight as the USA territory struggled to emerge from an island-wide blackout following a fire at a power plant that caused the aging utility grid to fail.
The governor, however, said that no amount of money or maintenance would have prevented the fire.
Police said the accident occurred early Friday near the island’s main global airport.
“To see everything blacked out, my God”, said Virginia Davila, a nurse’s assistant who lives on the 11th floor of an apartment building in San Juan. “The system is not created to withstand a failure of this magnitude”.
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The Electric Power Authority has faced numerous allegations of corruption, according to the Sentinel.
