Crews have begun restoring power amid an island-wide blackout in Puerto Rico, with almost 16% of customers back up and running the morning of April 17.
The blackout started at about 12:40 p.m. on April 16, when the Puerto Rico Governor’s Office said a failure in the transmission of the electrical system plunged 1.4 million customers into darkness. Puerto Rico is frequently plagued by power outages, with the most recent island-wide event on New Year’s Eve taking days to resolve.
Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón called the transmission issue “unacceptable.”
It could take between 48 and 72 hours for power to be restored to about 90% of customers this time, according to Luma Energy, the private company that operates power transmission and distribution. By the morning of April 17, about 231,500 customers had their power restored,
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Contributing: Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY; Reuters
