LUMA Energy, the company that controls the power grid in Puerto Rico, said that almost 99% of customers have had their electricity turned back on.
About 1.4 million people have had power restored, but some people may see service interruptions because of limited electric generation, ABC News reported.
In addition to no power, about 400,000 people had no water since the blackout started around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
A transmission line failed, causing the outage, forcing businesses to close. Hospitals and the main airport had to switch to generators.
People who were riding on San Juan’s rapid transit system had to walk on an overpass as they evacuated.
The Associated Press said that officials are trying to figure out what caused the failure - if breakers failed to open or exploded, overgrown vegetation, or something else.
Luma is supposed to do air patrols to make sure vegetation doesn’t encroach on power lines, and that the area where the failure happened was inspected last week as part of its air patrols.
There are also questions about why all the generators shut down when only one was supposed to go into a protective mode.
A Luma engineer said an investigation into the outage’s cause is ongoing.
This isn’t the first blackout in recent years. Much of the power grid was destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017. to have crumbling before the storm because of a lack of maintenance by the Electric Power Authority, which is in $9 billion in debt.
Luma has operated the power grid since 2021.
An underground power line failed on New Year’s Eve 2024, leaving the island in the dark for two days.
Power outages are so common that some people have resorted to solar panels and batteries to back up their homes and businesses, ABC News reported.
But the poverty rate in Puerto Rico is more than 40%, so most can’t afford to have the panels or generators installed, the AP reported.
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