Island-wide blackout hits Puerto Rico as residents prepare for Easter weekend

A woman looks at a leaking electrical transformer after the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto in the community of Puerta de Tierra in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)

An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the largely Catholic residents of the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend, officials said.

All 1.4 million clients on the island were without power, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The Associated Press. “The entire island is without generation,” he said.

Hotels were at near-capacity, with thousands of tourists celebrating Easter vacations on the island. Tourism officials rushed to reassure them, saying that many hotels and other businesses were operating with generators.

Meanwhile, at least 328,000 clients were without water, with officials warning that power likely won’t be fully restored for another 48 to 72 hours.

“This is unacceptable,” said Josue Colon, the island’s so-called energy czar and former executive director of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority.

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years. Gov. Jenniffer Gonzalez, who cut her weeklong vacation short and was returning to the island on Wednesday night, said officials were “working diligently” to address the outage.

Thousands of Puerto Ricans were fuming over the latest outage, with many renewing their calls that the government cancel the contract with Luma and Genera PR, which oversees generation of power on the island.

“This is a total disaster,” said Orlando Huertas, 68, as he sipped a drink with a friend at a streetside bar and criticized the government for not doing enough to tackle the chronic outages.

Dozens of people were forced to walk next to the rails of the rapid transit system that serves the capital, San Juan, while scores of businesses including the biggest mall in the Caribbean were forced to close. Professional baseball and basketball games were cancelled as the hum of generators and smell of smoke filled the air. Traffic became snarled as police officers were deployed to busy intersections.

Reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny echoed the collective rage, writing on X: “When are we going to do something?”

By late Wednesday afternoon, some 5,000 to 7,000 clients had their power restored, although that number is expected to fluctuate. Those without generators crowded around grocery stores and other businesses to buy ice.

“I’m desperate. My generator is broken,” said Carmen Suriel, who worried about the impact of the blackout on her two children, a six-month-old and a five-year-old with Down syndrome, as the temperature rose across Puerto Rico on Wednesday.

Alma Ramirez, 69, said she was frustrated with the constant outages, some of which had already damaged her TV and microwave, forcing her to buy new appliances.

“They have to improve,” she said of the government. “Those who are affected are us, the poor.”

The island of 3.2 million residents has a more than 40% poverty rate, and not everyone can afford solar panels or generators. While there was a push to use more renewable energy sources under the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, which provided Puerto Rico with mega generators and other resources, experts worry that won’t happen under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Roughly 117,000 homes and businesses on the island have solar rooftops. Meanwhile, petroleum-fired power plants provide 62% of Puerto Rico’s power, natural gas 24%, coal 8% and renewables 7%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Daniel Hernandez, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said at a news conference that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon on Wednesday, during a time when the grid is vulnerable because there are not many machines regulating frequency at that hour.

Veronica Ferraiuoli, acting governor and secretary of state for Puerto Rico, said the White House reached out to local officials and said they are available if needed.

Pablo Jose Hernandez, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress, said he would work to ensure that “Washington understands the real and urgent situation Puerto Ricans face every day.”

“The electric grid crisis is frustrating, and after years of blackouts, it feels like it’s going from bad to worse,” he said.

The last island-wide blackout occurred on New Year’s Eve.

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.

Dánica Coto, The Associated Press