{"id":120929,"date":"2024-12-31T22:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T22:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/nearly-all-of-puerto-rico-is-without-power-on-new-years-eve-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2024-12-31T22:00:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T22:00:37","slug":"nearly-all-of-puerto-rico-is-without-power-on-new-years-eve-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/nearly-all-of-puerto-rico-is-without-power-on-new-years-eve-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly all of Puerto Rico is without power on New Year\u2019s Eve – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
A utility pole with loose cables towers over a home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo, File)
Business owners turn to their power generators to be able to keep working during an island-wide blackout, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Carlos Giusti, File)
A utility pole with loose cables towers over a home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo, File)
A utility pole with loose cables towers over a home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo, File)
Business owners turn to their power generators to be able to keep working during an island-wide blackout, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Carlos Giusti, File)
Business owners turn to their power generators to be able to keep working during an island-wide blackout, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Carlos Giusti, File)
Lee<\/b> nuestra cobertura sobre el apag\u00f3n en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/span>.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) \u2014 A blackout hit nearly all of Puerto Rico<\/a><\/span> early on Tuesday as the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate New Year\u2019s, leaving more than 1.3 million clients in the dark<\/a><\/span>. Officials said it could take up to two days to restore power.
The outage hit at dawn, plunging the island into an eerie silence as electrical appliances and air conditioners shut down before those who could afford generators turned them on.
\u201cIt had to be on the 31st of December!\u201d exclaimed one man, who only gave his name as Manuel, as he stood outside a grocery store in the capital of San Juan, grumbling about the outage that coincided with his birthday. \u201cThere is no happiness.\u201d
Nearly 90% of 1.47 million clients across Puerto Rico were left in the dark, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution.
By late afternoon, more than 194,000 clients, including hospitals and Puerto Rico\u2019s water and sewer company, had power back, according to Luma. However, the company\u2019s webpage detailing locations and who was still without power was down.
Luma said in a statement that the power outage was likely caused by a failure of an underground power line. It said it\u2019s restoring power \u201cin the quickest and safest way possible.\u201d Hugo Sorrentini, a Luma spokesman, told The Associated Press that the incident was under investigation.
Discover Puerto Rico, a not-for-profit organization that promotes the island, warned travelers about the outage on its website and asked that cruise ship passengers contact tour operators directly to determine whether they had generators and were open for the day. <\/p>\n

Five cruise ships were scheduled to dock in Puerto Rico on Tuesday. While most hotels were running on generators, short-term rentals lacking them reported cancellations. The main international airport in San Juan remained open.
The blackout fanned simmering anger against Luma and Genera PR, which oversees the generation of power in Puerto Rico, as a growing number of people call for their ouster<\/a><\/span>.
Governor-elect Jenniffer Gonz\u00e1lez Col\u00f3n, who is set to be sworn in on Jan. 2<\/a><\/span>, has called for the creation of an \u201cenergy czar\u201d to review potential Luma contractual breaches while another operator is found.
\u201cWe can\u2019t keep relying on an energy system that fails our people,\u201d she wrote on the social media platform X, adding that stabilizing Puerto Rico\u2019s energy grid would be her top priority in office.
Meanwhile, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said he was in touch with Luma and Genera PR, adding on X that \u201cwe are demanding answers and solutions.\u201d
President Joe Biden was briefed on the outage, and U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm spoke with Pierluisi and at the president\u2019s direction offered federal assistance to speed power restoration.
The outage forced businesses, parks and several malls to close, and the government announced limited schedules for some of its agencies. Workers checked on hundreds of bedridden patients and distributed ice for diabetics to keep their insulin cold.
Other Puerto Ricans began to plan ahead.
\u201cI\u2019ll go to my balcony. That\u2019s where I\u2019ll sleep,\u201d Ra\u00fal Pacheco said with a shrug, as the 63-year-old diabetic sat on a walker nursing an injured foot.
Julio C\u00f3rdova, a municipal worker, said he got dressed by the light of his cellphone and planned to buy candles.
\u201cThis affects me because I had plans. It couldn\u2019t have been yesterday or tomorrow?\u201d he said, shaking his head as he raked leaves.
While island-wide blackouts are rare in Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory struggles with chronic power outages<\/a><\/span> blamed on a crumbling power grid that was razed by Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm in September 2017.
The system, however, was already in decline after years of lack of maintenance and investment.
Only recently did crews start making permanent repairs to Puerto Rico\u2019s power grid following Hurricane Maria. The island continues to depend on generators provided by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency to help stabilize the grid.
In November, Puerto Rico\u2019s government asked U.S. officials for permission to keep using more than a dozen portable generators for two additional years.
Some Puerto Ricans took the latest outage in stride.
\u201cThey\u2019re part of my everyday life,\u201d said Enid N\u00fa\u00f1ez, 49, who said she ate breakfast before work thanks to a small gas stove she bought for such events.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico\u2019s Electric Power Authority struggles to restructure more than $9 billion in debt<\/a><\/span>, the largest of the island\u2019s government agencies.
Power plants that rely on petroleum generate more than 60% of Puerto Rico\u2019s energy, followed by natural gas and coal. Solar rooftops account for only about 7% of electricity consumption on an island with a poverty rate over 40%.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.A utility pole with loose cables towers over a home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo\/Alejandro Granadillo, File)Business owners turn to their power generators to be able to keep working during an island-wide blackout, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Carlos Giusti, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-120929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}