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Power largely restored in Puerto Rico after total blackout

Officials said it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power to more than 1.4 million customers.
Credit: Jose Jimenez Tirado/Getty Images
Victor Vazquez, employee of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), during repair work on power lines affected by Hurricane Maria April 18, 2018 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Power was restored to more than a million customers in Puerto Rico on Thursday one day after workers removing a fallen tower got too close to a transmission line and knocked out electricity to the entire island, according to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

The island's 1.7 million customers, serving some 3.4 million residents, were hit by the outage Wednesday morning, PREPA said. Hospitals, banks and the San Juan airport were given priority ahead of homes and businesses for the restoration of power.

The power authority said the heavy equipment blamed for the incident was being operated by a subcontractor for Cobra Acquisitions. The same subcontractor was also blamed for an outage last week to 870,000 customers triggered by a tree falling on a power line, according to Justo Gonzalez, deputy director of PREPA.

Credit: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
Alana Rivera, age 10, does her daily homework in her apartment balcony lit by a cell phone light in San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 6, 2017. 

It was the latest setback for the island, where tens of thousands of people have been without power since Hurricane Maria struck seven months ago.

“This is all very worrisome, obviously, as we approach another hurricane season,” said Cathy Kunkel, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The grid is so fragile and they’re just barely able to get the lights back on.”

The latest blackout prompted Gov. Ricardo Rossello to call on PREPA to cancel its contract with the subcontractor.

With a debt of $9 billion, PREPA filed for a form of bankruptcy last year. Rosselló is pushing a bill to privatize the power system. The island's legislature held public hearings this week.

Contributing: Shelby Fleig

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