Puerto Rico Hit With Another Blackout  04/17 06:05

   

   SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Crews worked early Thursday to restore power 
to Puerto Rico after a blackout across the entire island that affected the main 
international airport, several hospitals and hotels filled with Easter 
vacationers.

   The outage that began past noon Wednesday left 1.4 million customers without 
electricity and 328,000 without water. At least 231,000 customers, or 16%, had 
power back at the end of the day. Officials expected 90% of customers to have 
power back within 48 to 72 hours after the outage.

   "This is a shame for the people of Puerto Rico that we have a problem of 
this magnitude," said Gov. Jenniffer Gonzlez, who cut her weeklong vacation 
short and returned to Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening.

   The blackout snarled traffic, forced hundreds of businesses to close and 
left those unable to afford generators scrambling to buy ice and candles.

   It's the second islandwide blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four 
months, with the previous one occurring on New Year's Eve.

   "Why on holidays?" griped Jos Luis Richardson, who did not have a generator 
and kept cool by splashing water on himself every couple of hours.

   The roar of generators and smell of fumes filled the air as a growing number 
of Puerto Ricans renewed calls for the government to cancel the contracts with 
Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, and 
Genera PR, which oversees generation.

   Gonzlez promised to heed those calls.

   "That is not under doubt or question," she said, but added that it's not a 
quick process. "It is unacceptable that we have failures of this kind."

   Gonzlez said a major outage like the one that occurred Wednesday leads to 
an estimated $230 million revenue loss daily.

   Ramn C. Barqun III, president of the United Retail Center, a nonprofit 
that represents small- and medium-sized businesses, warned that ongoing outages 
would spook potential investors at a time that Puerto Rico urgently needs 
economic development.

   "We cannot continue to repeat this cycle of blackouts without taking 
concrete measures to strengthen our energy infrastructure," he said.

   Many also were concerned about Puerto Rico's elderly population, with the 
mayor of Canvanas deploying brigades to visit the bedridden and those who 
depend on electronic medical equipment.

   Meanwhile, the mayor of Vega Alta opened a center to provide power to those 
with lifesaving medical equipment.

   It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a 
string of major blackouts on the island in recent years.

   Daniel Hernndez, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said Wednesday 
that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon, a time when 
the grid is vulnerable because there are few machines regulating frequency at 
that hour.

   Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017, when 
Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a 
power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild.

   The grid already had been deteriorating as a result of decades of a lack of 
maintenance and investment.