<p>Miami: More than 1.4 million customers in Puerto Rico lost electricity Wednesday when all of the island’s power plants were knocked out of service, the latest frustrating blackout for residents who have suffered years of them.</p><p>By late Wednesday, some power plants were slowly starting to turn back on, and 7 per cent of customers had electricity restored, officials said.</p><p>The blackout led to gridlock on Puerto Rico’s roads. People rushed to gas stations for fuel to power emergency generators. An urban train in San Juan, the capital, came to a stop, forcing passengers to clamber out and walk down an overpass.</p><p>Puerto Rico has suffered extensive power grid problems since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.</p><p>It has taken as long as several days to restore service after similar blackouts in the past, including an archipelago-wide outage on New Year’s Eve. That blackout, like the one Wednesday, included the smaller island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra. Hundreds of thousands of customers had also lost potable water service because of the outage.</p><p>Gary Soto, director of the energy management and transmission operation center for Luma Energy, the company that distributes power in Puerto Rico, said at the news conference that full restoration could take up to 72 hours. Daniel Hernández, vice president of operations for Genera PR, the company that generates power, said plants may come back online more quickly than in previous years because the company has invested in quicker restart systems.</p>.<p>Luma Energy said in a statement Wednesday evening that a possible cause for the blackout was a “protection system failure,” followed by a problem with overgrowth along a transmission line in western Puerto Rico, but that analysis was preliminary.</p><p>Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón had been away on vacation, but returned and spoke at a news conference Wednesday night.</p><p>“It is unacceptable that we have a failure of this magnitude in the electrical transmission system,” said González-Colón, who was elected last year after campaigning with a promise to end Luma Energy’s contract.</p><p>Many Puerto Ricans were preparing Wednesday to be off work starting Thursday as part of Holy Week, which also draws many tourists to the island.</p>
<p>Miami: More than 1.4 million customers in Puerto Rico lost electricity Wednesday when all of the island’s power plants were knocked out of service, the latest frustrating blackout for residents who have suffered years of them.</p><p>By late Wednesday, some power plants were slowly starting to turn back on, and 7 per cent of customers had electricity restored, officials said.</p><p>The blackout led to gridlock on Puerto Rico’s roads. People rushed to gas stations for fuel to power emergency generators. An urban train in San Juan, the capital, came to a stop, forcing passengers to clamber out and walk down an overpass.</p><p>Puerto Rico has suffered extensive power grid problems since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.</p><p>It has taken as long as several days to restore service after similar blackouts in the past, including an archipelago-wide outage on New Year’s Eve. That blackout, like the one Wednesday, included the smaller island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra. Hundreds of thousands of customers had also lost potable water service because of the outage.</p><p>Gary Soto, director of the energy management and transmission operation center for Luma Energy, the company that distributes power in Puerto Rico, said at the news conference that full restoration could take up to 72 hours. Daniel Hernández, vice president of operations for Genera PR, the company that generates power, said plants may come back online more quickly than in previous years because the company has invested in quicker restart systems.</p>.<p>Luma Energy said in a statement Wednesday evening that a possible cause for the blackout was a “protection system failure,” followed by a problem with overgrowth along a transmission line in western Puerto Rico, but that analysis was preliminary.</p><p>Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón had been away on vacation, but returned and spoke at a news conference Wednesday night.</p><p>“It is unacceptable that we have a failure of this magnitude in the electrical transmission system,” said González-Colón, who was elected last year after campaigning with a promise to end Luma Energy’s contract.</p><p>Many Puerto Ricans were preparing Wednesday to be off work starting Thursday as part of Holy Week, which also draws many tourists to the island.</p>