Puerto Rico hit by blackout on New Year’s Eve

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico –

A blackout hit nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate New Year’s, leaving more than 1.3 million clients in the dark. Officials said it could take up to two days to restore power.

The outage hit at dawn, plunging the island into an eerie silence as electrical appliances and air conditioners shut down before those who could afford generators turned them on.

It had to be on the 31st of December!” exclaimed one man, who only gave his name as Manuel, as he stood outside a grocery store in the capital of San Juan, grumbling about the outage that coincided with his birthday. “There is no happiness.”

Nearly 90 per cent of 1.47 million clients across Puerto Rico were left in the dark, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution. It estimated that power would be restored in 24 to 48 hours, conditions permitting.

Luma said in a statement that it appears the outage was caused by a failure of an underground power line, saying it is restoring power “in the quickest and safest way possible.”

A Luma spokesman told The Associated Press that the incident was under investigation.

A spokesperson for Genera PR, which oversees power generation, could not be immediately reached for comment.

With no idea when power would return, Puerto Ricans began to think ahead.

“I’ll go to my balcony. That’s where I’ll sleep,” Raul Pacheco said with a resigned shrug, as the 63-year-old diabetic sat on a walker nursing an injured foot.

Julio Cordova, a municipal worker who was raking leaves on a nearby sidewalk, said he got dressed by the light of his cellphone and planned to buy candles.

“This affects me because I had plans. It couldn’t have been yesterday or tomorrow?” he said as he shook his head.

While blackouts are rare in Puerto Rico, the island continues to struggle with chronic power outages blamed on a crumbling power grid that was razed by Hurricane Maria, a powerful category 4 storm that struck the island in September 2017.

The system, however, was already in decline prior to the storm given years of lack of maintenance and investment.

Some Puerto Ricans took the latest outage in stride.

“They’re part of my everyday life,” said Enid Nunez, 49, who said she ate breakfast before work thanks to a small gas stove she bought for such events.