More than a million customers in Puerto Rico remained without electricity on Thursday after a fire at a main power plant caused the biggest blackout so far this year across the U.S. territory, forcing it to cancel classes and shutter government offices.
The blackout also left some 160,000 disasters” target=”_blank”>customers< fuel for generators. Others tried to charge their cellphones at businesses in scenes reminiscent of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which struck as a Category 4 storm in 2017.
A police officer directs cars along R.H. Tood Avenue after a crash near an intersection during a blackout in San Juan, Puerto Rico, early Thursday, April 7, 2022.
(AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)
Officials in at least one city distributed food to hundreds of elderly people as well as ice to those whose medication must be kept cool.
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“This is horrible,” said Luisa Rosado, a mother of two who lives in the San Juan neighborhood of Río Piedras.
She said she and her husband had environment” target=”_blank”>sacrificed<,” Acevedo said, adding that that the equipment whose failure sparked the fire had been properly maintained.
Officials said at least three generation units were back online by Thursday, with crews working to restore more.
Luma CEO Wayne Stensby called it a “very unusual” outage that “clearly indicates the fragility of the system.”
The outage occurred two months before the Atlantic hurricane season starts, worrying many about the condition of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid.
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“Yes, the system is fragile, no one is denying that, but we’re prepared,” Acevedo said.
Police officers were stationed at main intersections to help direct traffic on Thursday while health officials checked in at hospitals to ensure generators were still running.
The outage further enraged Puerto Ricans already education” target=”_blank”>frustrated<
In June last year, a large fire at a substation in the capital of San Juan left hundreds of thousands without power. Another fire at a power plant in September 2016 sparked an island-wide blackout.
