Almost all of Puerto Rico was hit with a blackout Tuesday morning, leaving 1.3 million clients in the dark.
Nearly 90% of the 1.47 million clients across the island are without power, the Associated Press reports.
One man exclaimed, “It had to be on the 31st of December!”
“There is no happiness,” he added.
Luma Energy, a company overseeing Puerto Rico’s electricity, said that the outage was likely caused by an underground power line failure. The company added that it is working to restore power in as “quickly and safely as possible.”
“LUMA has activated its Emergency Operations Center and is currently working with Genera and other generation partners to restart the electrical system and restore power following an island-wide outage that began at 5:30 a.m. While the cause of the outage is under investigation, preliminary findings point to a fault on an underground line,” the company said. “The cause of the fault remains under investigation. LUMA crews responded immediately and have begun their process to restore power to customers as quickly and safely as possible.”
“LUMA will restore power to customers in phases. We have already begun the process of restoring some customers, and the full process will take between 24-48 hours, conditions permitting. LUMA will provide regular updates on the restoration via its social media channels every two hours.”
The AP report explains that while blackouts are uncommon in Puerto Rico, the island does have frequent power outages. The island uses generators provided by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said on X, “We are in communication with LUMA and Genera, as well as with the AEE team regarding the massive blackout affecting a large part of the Island due to a critical fault. We can report that work is already underway to restore service with the San Juan and Palo Seco plants.”
“We are demanding answers and solutions from both LUMA and Genera, who must expedite the restart of the generating units outside the fault area and keep the people duly informed about the measures they are taking to restore service throughout the Island.”
