Indignant Puerto Ricans took to social media to condemn recurrent power outages that have been plaguing the U.S. territory since the beginning of the month. The biggest one yet occurred Wednesday night, leaving more than 340,000 customers without electricity as the island grappled with heat warnings.
Residents shared images of their worn-out candles and videos of their blacked out neighborhoods overcome by the deafening rumble of generators.
Even Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, who just wrapped up a string of sold-out concerts in his homeland, posted a line of his hit song “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”) on X on Wednesday night. The song and its music video, in part, address how power outages have become more common over the last several years in Puerto Rico, even without a weather-related event.
"This disaster is without bad weather. Protect us from storms and hurricanes," Telemundo Puerto Rico journalist Valeria Collazo pointed out in an X post shared by Bad Bunny.
The outages have reignited calls from frustrated residents to oust the private companies that recently took over power generation and distribution after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory’s already fragile and disinvested electrical grid in 2017.
According to Luma Energy, the private company in charge of the island’s power transmission and distribution system, the outage was tied to "failures in two transmission lines" between San Juan, the capital, and Aguas Buenas, a southern town.
The outage prompted San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero to declare a state of emergency late Wednesday.
“There are thousands of children with specific feeding needs, as well as older adults who often need therapy machines to protect their health and often save their lives,” the decree stated, as Romero accused Luma Energy of sharing limited information about the ongoing blackouts.
In Old San Juan, dozens of Puerto Ricans gathered outside the governor's mansion, banging pots and pans, to protest the unreliable access to power.
Shortly before 10 a.m. on Thursday, Luma Energy stated that over 99% of customers had their power restored.
This is happening as Luma Energy works to restore a faulty energy transformer that left tens of thousands of other Puerto Ricans without power on June 2.
The June 2 power outage lasted so many hours that towns in the central and southern regions of Puerto Rico were forced to activate emergency response teams and request food distribution to those in need.
Repairs to the faulty energy transformer could take more than a month, mainly because the pieces needed to replace the damaged parts of the grid are so heavy that they can't be transported by road, presenting Luma Energy with a logistical challenge.
"We are in the best position to work hand in hand with the relevant agencies to complete the movement safely, but with a sense of urgency for our clients," said José Reyes, who leads emergency response efforts at Luma Energy. "The goal is to be able to bring a permanent solution to our clients in the south."
Longer, more recurrent outages
With permanent reconstruction of the devastated power grid still pending since 2017, outages have only become longer and more recurrent in recent years.
Government officials in Puerto Rico have promised for years that the privatization of the power grid under Luma Energy, and more recently Genera PR, would improve electric services, but the territory’s residents are still grappling with frequent outages.
"We are demanding answers and solutions from Luma and Genera, the events that have been occurring in recent weeks with our electrical system are unacceptable," Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said in an X post. "While it is true that we have old plants and transmission lines in terrible condition, the people continue to suffer the consequences of the lack of sense of urgency that private operators are demonstrating."
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