Most of Puerto Rico hit by New Year’s Eve power outage

San Juan, Puerto Rico — A massive power outage hit nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate New Year’s Eve. More than 1.2 million out of 1.47 million clients were without power, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution on the island.

LUMA said in a statement that it would likely take between 24 and 48 hours to restore electricity across the island, “conditions permitting.” 

“While the cause of the outage is under investigation, preliminary findings point to a failure in an underground line,” the company said.

Reuters quoted Ivan Baez, a spokesperson for Puerto Rico’s primary energy generator Genera, as saying the failure of the grid was believed to have been caused by a problem with a line operated by LUMA, but that it had also brought down plants belonging to Genera and some other private electricity generators.

Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said in a post on social media that his administration was communicating with both LUMA and Genera “regarding the massive blackout affecting a large part of the Island due to a critical fault.”

He said work was underway to restore electrical supply and that the government was “demanding answers and solutions from both LUMA and Genera, who must expedite the restart of the generating units outside the fault area and keep the people duly informed about the measures they are taking to restore service throughout the Island.”

Speaking to the Telemundo network late Monday, however, Josué Colón, head of Puerto Rico’s electric energy authority, said it could take several days to fully restore service.

Puerto Rico continues to struggle with chronic power outages blamed on a crumbling power grid that was razed by Hurricane Maria, a powerful category 4 storm that struck the island in September 2017. The system was already in decline prior to the storm given years of lack of maintenance and investment.