logo
A look at why an island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico and what caused it

A look at why an island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico and what caused it

Yahoo17-04-2025

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico this week, leaving 1.4 million customers without power and more than 400,000 without water.
It was the second massive outage to hit Puerto Rico since New Year's Eve, when a blackout left 90% of clients without power.
Crews on Thursday scrambled to restore power as a growing number of Puerto Ricans called on the governor to cancel the contracts of two companies that oversee the generation, transmission and distribution of power on the U.S. territory of 3.2 million residents.
When did the blackout occur?
At 12:38 p.m. on Wednesday, massive generating plants began to shut down across Puerto Rico after a transmission line failed.
Refrigerators stopped humming, air conditioners fell silent and traffic lights went dark.
People started realizing the magnitude of the outage when they began calling friends and family that live on the other side of the island who said that they, too, were without power.
Hundreds of businesses closed, including the biggest mall in the Caribbean. Hospitals and the main international airport began running on generators while dozens of passengers using a rapid transit system that serves the capital, San Juan, were forced to walk on an overpass next to the train's rails to evacuate.
Incredulous, Puerto Ricans began demanding answers from the government as crews scrambled to find out what happened.
'When are we going to do something?' reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny wrote on X, reflecting people's collective rage.
Anger grew as people began posting pictures of those affected by the blackout, including one of a woman who had plugged a small machine into the outlet of a grocery store to give herself medical treatment for a lung condition.
Why did it occur?
Authorities are still investigating the causes of the blackout. One possibility is that overgrown vegetation may have affected the grid and caused a transmission line to fail, officials said.
Luma Energy, the company responsible for overseeing transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, is supposed to do frequent air patrols over certain lines to ensure they remain free of vegetation.
Pedro Meléndez, a Luma engineer, said in a news conference Thursday that he did not immediately have details on when the company last did an air patrol, but added that those occur with the frequency established in its contract.
Josué Colón, the island's energy czar and former executive director of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority, said Luma also needs to explain why all the generators shut down after there was a failure in the transmission system, when only one was supposed to go into protective mode.
It'll likely take weeks to find a precise reason for the blackout, although Gov. Jenniffer González said Thursday that she expects to have a very preliminary report within three days.
Why is Puerto Rico's power grid in such bad shape?
For decades, Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority did not give the grid the maintenance and investment it required.
It began crumbling throughout the years, and then on Sept. 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory as a powerful Category 4 storm. It snapped power lines, toppled transmission towers and broke flimsy wooden light posts, leaving some people nearly a year without power.
In the months that followed, crews focused on emergency repairs. It wasn't until a couple years after the hurricane that actual reconstruction began.
In June 2021, the Electric Power Authority contracted Luma as it struggled to restructure its more than $9 billion debt, with negotiations still ongoing.
In January 2023, the authority contracted Genera PR to oversee the generation of power on the island as part of another public-private partnership.
Puerto Rico has been plagued by chronic power outages since Maria, with pictures and videos of transmission lines on fire becoming increasingly common.
González has said that providing consistent energy is a priority and distanced herself from renewable energy goals set by the previous governor.
Her administration recently extended the operations of Puerto Rico's lone coal-fired plant.
Meanwhile, with a poverty rate exceeding 40%, many on the island cannot afford solar panels or generators.
Roughly 117,000 homes and businesses on the island have solar rooftops. Petroleum-fired power plants provide 62% of Puerto Rico's power, natural gas 24%, coal 8% and renewables 7%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
What are officials doing to improve the grid?
A growing number of Puerto Ricans have demanded that the governor cancel Luma's contract, and she has pledged to do so.
'People must be fed up with us having such a mediocre system. If it's not the transmission, it's the generation,' González said. 'Of course there will be consequences.'
However, she noted that canceling the contract and finding a new company takes time.
Officials also previously warned that there would not be sufficient generation come summer, when demand peaks.
Given that concern, González said the government is seeking to contract a company that can provide more than 800 megawatts of energy in the upcoming months. The request-for-proposal process began on March 25 and ends this month. Sixty companies have submitted proposals.
____
Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

UN launches a rescue operation after 8 migrants die off Djiboutian coast
UN launches a rescue operation after 8 migrants die off Djiboutian coast

Hamilton Spectator

timean hour ago

  • Hamilton Spectator

UN launches a rescue operation after 8 migrants die off Djiboutian coast

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The U.N migration agency said Wednesday that eight migrants died and 22 others were missing after they were forced off a boat near the Djiboutian coast. The International Organization for Migration, or IOM, in a statement said the migrants were part of a group of 150 others who were forced by smugglers to disembark a boat and swim to shore on June 5. The migrants were found in the desert by IOM patrol teams and taken to a migrant response center. The IOM and authorities in Djibouti are continuing with a search and rescue operation to find the missing migrants. 'Every life lost at sea is a tragedy that should never happen,' Celestine Frantz, said IOM Regional Director for the East, Horn and Southern Africa. Frantz said that the migrants were 'forced into impossible choices by smugglers who show no regard for human life.' Thousands of migrants from African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries seeking a better life in Europe attempt irregular migration every year . Smugglers pack vessels full of desperate people willing to risk their lives to reach continental Europe. Most of the vessels get migrants across the Red Sea to Gulf countries before they proceed further to European nations. Yemen is a major route for migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa trying to reach Gulf countries for work, with hundreds of thousands attempting the route each year. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .

World-famous German "nail artist" Günther Uecker dies at 95
World-famous German "nail artist" Günther Uecker dies at 95

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

World-famous German "nail artist" Günther Uecker dies at 95

BERLIN (AP) — German artist Günther Uecker, one of the country's most important post-war artists who was world-famous for his large-format nail reliefs, has died. He was 95. German news agency dpa reported that his family confirmed he died at the university hospital in his hometown of Düsseldorf in western Germany Tuesday night. They did not give a cause of death. For decades, Uecker, who was often dubbed 'the nail artist,' created art by hammering carpenter's nails into chairs, pianos, sewing machines and canvases. His works can be found in museums and collections across the globe. In his art work, seemingly endless numbers of nails, which would by themselves perhaps be perceived as potentially aggressive and hurtful, turned into harmonic, almost organic creations. His reliefs with the tightly hewn nails are reminiscent of waving grasses or fields of algae in a marine landscape. Uecker himself described his nail art as diary-like landscapes of the soul, which he called an 'expression of the poetic power of man,' dpa reported. Hendrik Wüst, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia which includes state capital Düsseldorf, called Uecker 'one of the most important and influential artists in German post-war history' and said that with his life's work, he influenced generations of young artists and 'contributed to an open and dynamic society." Born on March 13, 1930, in the village of Wendorf on the Baltic Sea, Uecker moved to Düsseldorf in the mid-1950s, where he studied and later also taught at the city's prestigious art academy. In one of his most spectacular appearances or art happenings, he rode on the back of a camel through the hallways of the venerable academy in 1978. Together with fellow artist Gerhard Richter, he 'occupied' the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden museum in 1968, with both kissing in front of the cameras. The son of a farmer, he traveled the world with a humanitarian message of peace and exhibited in countless countries, including dictatorships and totalitarian states. He painted ash pictures after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and exhibited human rights messages painted on fabric in Beijing. He also painted 'Verletzungswörter,' or words of violence, killing and torment in many languages and foreign scripts on large canvases. In 2023, Uecker erected a stone memorial in Weimar in memory of the victims of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald. 'The theme of my artistic work is the vulnerability of man by man,' he said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store