By Rich McKay and Ivelisse Rivera
SAN JUAN (Reuters) -Puerto Ricans were without electricity on New Year’s Eve after a power outage left almost the entire island without power, although power was slowly restored.
About 58% of customers were without power as of 9pm (0100 GMT) on Tuesday, compared to 90% earlier in the day, according to the website of energy distribution company LUMA Energy. Puerto Rico has long suffered chronic power outages as its infrastructure crumbles.
It will likely take 24 to 48 hours before the lights come back on, LUMA said in a statement. It later added that power had been restored to some critical facilities, including Centro Medico and the Municipal Hospital in San Juan.
“Although the cause of the disruption is under investigation, preliminary findings point to a disruption on a metro line,” LUMA said.
Ivan Baez, a spokesman for power generator Genera, said in a local radio interview that the line believed to be faulty was operated by LUMA and took down Genera power stations as well as private generators.
LUMA did not answer direct questions about responsibility for the high-voltage lines.
Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said in a social media post that LUMA and Genera must “bring the generator units back online… and keep people informed of the measures they are taking to bring service back to the entire island. .”
‘MORE THAN A DECADE IN THE MAKING’
Ramon Luis Nieves, 49, a lawyer in San Juan and a former senator on the island, said New Year’s Eve is typically a time for family reunions, popping champagne bottles and watching fireworks. The power outage could dampen celebrations this year, he said.
“My wife and I have to figure it out,” he said. “We can’t visit my wife’s family after dark.”
He added that he is not surprised by the outages, especially after Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that hit the island hard in 2017.
Nieves has long been a critic of power grid operators.
“This disaster has been more than a decade in the making,” he said. “The (power) generators are old, have long exceeded their life expectancy and the operators have not invested properly for years.”
Such sentiment is common on the Caribbean island, a U.S. territory whose residents are U.S. citizens but have no voting representation in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections. Protesters have called on the island’s government to cancel the contract with LUMA.
In response to a 2022 protest, LUMA said it had “inherited an electrical system that had suffered years, in fact decades, of abandonment.”
Steven Pacheco, a 55-year-old former lineman in the area, was visiting from St. Petersburg, Florida, over the holidays.
He said it’s frustrating for everyone to be “constantly on edge, waiting for these emergencies to happen again.”
Jenniffer González, who takes office as governor of Puerto Rico on Thursday, said on social media that she is forming an energy task force to address frequent power outages.
“We cannot continue with an energy system that so often fails our people,” she wrote. “Events such as this morning’s power outage and the uncertainty surrounding the island’s speedy restoration of power continue to impact our economy and quality of life.”
(Reporting by Ivelisse Rivera in San Juan and Kylie Madry in Asheville, North Carolina, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Alistair Bell, Aurora Ellis and Neil Fullick)
