By Luis Ferré-Sadurni, Victor Mather, Eduardo Medina and Christina Morales
Asweeping blackout hit Puerto Rico early Tuesday morning, plunging most of the island into darkness on New Year’s Eve.
Across the island, which has long been plagued with widespread power outages, residents woke up with a familiar feeling of resignation and deep frustration, as officials warned that the power outage could persist through New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Only about 13% of Puerto Rico’s 1.4 million utility customers had power Tuesday morning in what was described as a “systemwide” blackout, according to LUMA Energy, which operates the island’s electric power transmission and distribution system. The private consortium said it had restored service to about 44,700 customers — about 3% of those affected — by 1 p.m., but did not specify how many remained without power.
LUMA said on social media that “preliminary findings point to a fault on an underground line.” It said that it planned to restore power in phases and that “the entire process will take between 24-48 hours, conditions permitting.” The company said in a separate statement that service had been restored to the San Juan Medical Center and Municipal Hospital.
Josué Colón Ortiz, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, told Telemundo that he believed restoration would take several days.
Puerto Rico has faced a series of blackouts since 2017, when Hurricane Maria severely damaged the island, including its power grid.
The blackout appeared to be significantly bigger than more recent outages this past summer. A blackout in June left about 350,000 customers without power. In August, 700,000 lost power in the wake of Hurricane Ernesto.
“We are demanding answers,” the territory’s governor, Pedro Pierluisi, said on social media. Power companies, he added, “must expedite the restart of the generating units outside the fault area and keep the peo-ple duly informed about the measures they are taking to restore service throughout the island.”
Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, who is scheduled to be sworn in today, reacted angrily at the latest blackout in Puerto Rico.
“We can not continue with an energy system that fails our people so much,” González Colón said, focus-ing her ire not only on the “massive” blackout, but also on “the uncertainty as to when power will be restored.”
The governor-elect has vowed to create the Office of the Energy Czar to monitor the private operators of the energy system. She also has promised to find ways to cancel the contract with embattled LUMA Energy.
Both LUMA and Genera PR, the private operator of the island’s legacy power plants, have faced criticism in recent years for Puerto Rico’s often-faulty grid.
Emailed requests for comment on Tuesday morning generated automated replies from representatives for both companies saying they would be unavailable until January.
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, the busiest in Puerto Rico, said in a statement Tuesday that it was “operating normally thanks to electric generators.” A per-son at the administrator’s office of the Hospital Caribbean Medical Center in Fajardo said the facility was operating normally, relying on four generators.
The blackout threatened to put a damper on the New Year’s holiday, which Puerto Ricans typically celebrate by gathering in town squares and family homes — to drink, eat traditional holiday dishes and set off fireworks.
Ilia Quiñones said her morning appointment at a beauty salon was canceled because Plaza Las Américas, the largest mall on the island, had largely shut down. She was supposed to do her hair for an annual New Year’s celebration her sister hosts for about 50 relatives at a ranch in Gurabo, a mountain town just south of San Juan.
Her sister had been planning the party for more than a month, but the celebrations were now in limbo because the ranch does not have a generator. The family was now considering whether to still hold the party under the night sky using battery-powered lanterns.
“Bring your own lantern,” Quiñones quipped, adding: “People are so used to this already that we’ve gotten used to mediocrity.”
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