Most of Puerto Rico Darkened by New Year’s Eve Blackout

On New Year’s Eve, a widespread blackout struck Puerto Rico early on Tuesday, leaving the majority of the island in complete darkness.

As officials warned that the power outage would likely last through Wednesday’s New Year celebrations, residents of the island, which has long been beset by widespread power outages, woke up with a familiar sense of despair and intense frustration.

Luma electrical, a private Canadian American company that took over the U.S. territory’s electrical infrastructure in 2021, reported that about 90 percent of Puerto Rico’s 1.4 million utility customers were without power Tuesday morning in what was called a “systemwide” blackout.

The business stated that preliminary results indicated that an underground line fault had caused the blackout and that it intended to restore electricity gradually over the course of up to 48 hours, “conditions permitting.”

In a late Tuesday update, Luma stated that 48 percent of customers had their power back as of 11 p.m. The New Year’s celebration, which Puerto Ricans usually celebrate by congregating in town squares and family homes to drink, eat traditional holiday fare, and light fireworks, was dampened by the blackout.

Tourists were wandering about in Old San Juan, the capital’s Spanish colonial district and a popular tourist destination, on Tuesday night despite the loud blare of generators.

To the dismay of their proprietors, some cafes, restaurants, and bars without backup generators were forced to close, missing out on the high volume of foot traffic from cruise ships. More customers were loading up their shopping carts with lanterns and water bottles rather than chips and alcohol at a Walmart in Humacao, in eastern Puerto Rico.

Plaza Las Américas, the island’s largest mall, had mostly closed, so Ilia Quiñones reported her morning appointment at a beauty salon had been cancelled. Her sister holds an annual New Year’s celebration for roughly fifty relatives at a ranch in Gurabo, a mountain village just south of San Juan, and she was expected to style her hair for the event.

The festivities were put on hold since the ranch lacked a generator, even though her sister had been organising the party for over a month. The family was debating whether to use lanterns that ran on batteries to host the celebration outside. Ms. Quiñones said, “People are so used to this already that we’ve gotten used to mediocrity,” and advised bringing your own lantern.

Key medical facilities including the busiest airport in Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, seemed to have electricity, albeit some of them relied on backup generators. According to Luma, both of San Juan’s airports were operational as of 11 p.m. Since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, including its electrical grid, the island has seen a string of blackouts. Compared to other outages this summer, the blackout seemed to be much larger.

In June, almost 350,000 consumers lost power due to a blackout. After Hurricane Ernesto in August, 700,000 people were left without power.

Pedro Pierluisi, the governor of the territory, posted on social media, saying, “We are demanding answers.” He noted that Puerto Rico’s authorisation for the use of temporary generators was extended by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday for an additional two years, through 2027, to provide more capacity.

According to the White House, President Biden called Mr. Pierluisi Tuesday night to discuss the power outage and offer any federal assistance that may be required.

Luma spokesman, Hugo Sorrentini, stated that the blackout started at a switch yard, which is a form of control centre where electricity is routed from a power plant onto transmission lines. He stated that, an underground wire at the switch yard in Costa Sur, a neighbourhood in southern Puerto Rico, collapsed, leading the plant to “basically trip and cause a cascading effect that took out other generation units.” He claimed that the power grid completely shut down because it is ill-equipped to handle the loss of so much generation at once. The system must now be “ramped up slowly to prevent regression,” he concluded.