Power Main in Pr Fails Again
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A major power outage hitting Puerto Rico late Wednesday, plunging nearly 350,000 customers into darkness subsequently a burn erupted at i of the largest power plants in the U.S. territory.
The outage was one of the biggest in contempo months for the island'southward aging electrical grid, which has seen its periodic blackouts grow worse the last few years. The outage elicited a collective groan from people beyond Puerto Rico equally many who depend on insulin or respiratory therapies once over again worried about how long it would final.
"Apagón!" wrote many frustrated customers beyond social media, using the Spanish word for outage.
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said priority would exist given to hospitals and other institutions as he tweeted: "I urge everyone to remain calm."
Puerto Rico'southward health secretary said generators at all hospitals and health centers were operation and had enough fuel, adding that coronavirus vaccines remained properly stored at the correct temperature.
Transportation officials said crews evacuated passengers from the island'southward rapid transit system and took them to their destinations via buses.
Didactics officials said they would shortly announce whether classes at public schools would be cancelled Thursday, frustrating many parents who worried they might not find out if their cellphones died and they were unable to accuse them.
Luma, a private company that took over manual and distribution of the Puerto Rico'southward Electrical Power Authority last year, said in a statement that ability might non be restored until Thursday, "given the size and scope" of the outage.
"The power grid has suffered a massive island-broad blackout, potentially acquired by a circuit breaker failure at the Costa Sur generation institute. We are not clear on the exact cause at this fourth dimension," the company said.
Costa Sur is i of the island'due south four chief power plants.
Puerto Rico's burn down department worked belatedly into the nighttime to put out the blaze as frustration and acrimony over yet another coma continued to grow.
Carian Montull, 36, said she was at a clothing store in southern Puerto Rico when the lights went out. She said the store'southward generators failed to turn on, so she and about a dozen other customers were forced to go out their purchases behind and go home.
She said someone nearby cried out: "The lights seriously went out?! It tin can't be."
Montull said she doesn't accept a generator at home and hoped the power would come back shortly so the food in her refrigerator wouldn't spoil.
Luma said it would release additional data once it had more than details. When it took over transmission and distribution in June, the governor at the time said the company had pledged to reduce ability interruptions by 30% and the length of outages by forty%. That aforementioned calendar month, a large fire at a substation in the capital of San Juan left hundreds of thousands without power.
Another fire at a power plant in September 2016 sparked an island-wide blackout. A yr later, Hurricane Maria hit, razing the island'due south frail electric grid and leaving some customers without power for near a twelvemonth. Emergency repairs have since been made, but reconstruction efforts take even so to start.
In add-on, Puerto Rico'due south Electrical Power Authority is trying to emerge from defalcation and holds some $nine billion in public debt that it is trying to restructure. The utility has long struggled with mismanagement, corruption and aging infrastructure that has not been maintained.
Source: https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/puerto-rico-plunged-into-darkness-after-power-station-fire/
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