On New Year's Eve, Puerto Rico experienced the most recent in a series of extensive power outages that left almost all of the island without power.
The widespread outage occurred on Tuesday (December 31), when 1.3 million customers were impacted during infrastructure difficulties on the island's southern coast, according to NBC News. Energy company LUMA provided updates on X throughout the day, and as of 3 p.m. AST, 73,000 customers had their power restored. Among locations prioritized were "hospitals, Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority facilities, and critical loads."
LUMA stated that the problem appeared to be due to an underground cable that needed to be restarted in connection with Puerto Rico's power network.
"LUMA will be restoring power to customers in phases. We’ve already begun the process of reenergizing some customers, with the full restoration process taking between 24 and 48 hours as conditions permit," the company said.
Puerto Rico has faced ongoing infrastructure problems that were exacerbated by the destructive Hurricane Maria in September 2017, the island power grid's suffering from frequent outages. In terms of the total amount of hours of electricity lost, the blackout was considered the biggest in U.S. history.
In June, a heat wave left 340,000 residents without electricity in the island's capital, San Juan, and neighboring cities. Inhabitants of Puerto Rico have protested for the renewal of the territory, with one group singing a song of disdain during the San Juan visit of Vice President Kamala Harris in March.
