San Juan, Puerto Rico
Officials said it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power to more than 1.4 million customers as outrage grew across the island about the state of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority. It was the second major outage in less than a week, with the previous one affecting some 840,000 customers.
“This is too much,” said Luis Oscar Rivera, a computer technician who just got normal power back at his house less than two months ago. “It’s like the first day of Maria all over again.”
Authorities said the same contractor was involved in the two latest big power failures and had been fired. The outage last Thursday was set off when a tree limb fell on a power line as the contractor cleared land in central Puerto Rico and a backup line failed. On Wednesday, an excavator used by the contractor hit a transmission line near the south coast.
Several large power outages have hit Puerto Rico in recent months, but Wednesday was the first time since the hurricane struck on Sept. 20 that the U.S. territory has experienced a full island-wide blackout.
The outage snarled traffic across the island, interrupted classes and work, and forced dozens of businesses to temporarily close, including the largest mall and popular tourist attractions such as a 16th century fort in the historic part of Puerto Rico’s capital. Long lines formed at stations across the island, while authorities offered assurances that there was enough gasoline available.