Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness after a power outage on New Year’s Eve

Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness early Tuesday morning by an outage across most of the island.

The cause of the blackout is under investigation, but preliminary findings point to a fault in an underground line, according to Luma Energy, the island’s main electricity distributor. Full restoration of service may take between 24-48 hours, the company told X.

Only 13 percent of the island’s 1.4 million customers had power as of about 10 a.m. local time (2 p.m. GMT), according to the New York Times.

An hour later, power was restored in some areas, as well as at San Juan’s municipal hospital, Luma said.

The New Year’s Eve power outage prompted renewed calls from elected officials and residents to address ongoing power problems in the unincorporated U.S. territory that have continued since 2017’s Hurricane Maria.

The island cannot continue to put up with an energy system that fails its citizens so often, Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon, Puerto Rico’s current representative in the US Congress and future governor of Puerto Rico, wrote to X.

The blackout continues to impact Puerto Rico’s economy and quality of life, she said.

On Facebook, current governor Pedro Pierluisi demanded answers and solutions from the two main energy companies, Luma and Genera.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have been affected by power outages at once this year. An outage in June left about 350,000 customers without power as temperatures soared, and more than 700,000 customers lost power after Hurricane Ernesto in August.

As they woke up to another day without electricity, Puerto Ricans expressed frustration to the US media.

“They’re part of my daily life,” Enid Nunes, 49, told The Associated Press of the outages.

Puerto Rico’s power grid was strained even before Hurricane Maria ravaged the island. Funding from the U.S. government helped strengthen the grid, facilitate recovery projects from other natural disasters, and make other important infrastructure improvements.

But the rollout has been incomplete due to various factors, such as problems getting construction started and Federal Emergency Management Agency requirements to authorize the use of some of the funds, according to a February 2024 release. report by the US Government Accountability Office.

“Unforgivably, the power grid has not yet recovered from the damage caused by Hurricane Maria,” Mark Levine, president of the New York City Borough of Manhattan, wrote to X.

New York is home to the largest Puerto Rican community in the continental United States.

“That’s 3.5 million American citizens,” he wrote. “We owe them so much more.”