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Puerto Rico is Experiencing an Island-Wide Blackout (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the breaking-news dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Seven months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico, the power grid is still unstable. But progress was being made; according to CBS, less than 10 percent of the island was without power as of a month ago. But now, the Associated Press reports that the island is undergoing yet another full blackout. The power company is still investigating the cause and estimates it will take 24 to 36 hours for power to be restored. The saga of Puerto Rico's power grid has been an unhappy one. The US territory was already facing a financial crisis before the hurricane hit. The island only has one electric company, and prior to Maria, it was $9 billion in debt and utilizing outdated infrastructure and equipment.

5 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How is that possible?? by tomhath · · Score: 3, Informative

    PREPA - Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is a public corporation, not private. One of the benefits of socialized utilities is that they can spend other people's money forever.

  2. Re:Didn't they send away help???? by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Is this the same place that sent away the crews that had started rebuilding the infrastructure after the hurricane because they suspected cronyism with the Trump Administration?

    Because a company with an employee count that can totaled on the hand of a drunk carpenter is the best possible choice to rebuild the power infrastructure of a whole island. Not to mention the contract prevented the PR government from auditing the contract and that the company was charging over $300 per hour for each worker.... Their contract was bigger than the one for the Army Corp of Engineers! That whole situation smelled worse than, well, a San Juan fish market after a few weeks of no refrigeration.

    --
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  3. They didn't by rsilvergun · · Score: 1, Informative

    like most poor States they don't have the resources to build a power grid without help. The same is true for KY, AL, SC and just about the entire South. That's one of the reasons they're a net importer of Federal dollars.

    PR's problem is that they're like a state but they're not. They have the disadvantages (paying taxes, military service requirements, etc) but none of the benefits. They've been trying to become a full state for ages but they lean Democrat and the Republicans have been in charge since Reagan (I'm not counting Clinton, he was so right wing he might as well have been a Republican).

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    1. Re:They didn't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Total lies. First of all there is no military service requirement in the United States. Second, they pay no federal taxes. Third, there was just a referendum giving Puerto Ricans the option to become a state. They chose "no".

  4. Re: How is that possible?? by Walter+White · · Score: 2, Informative

    We'll see what the corrupt government of Puerto Rico does.

    Before you lay the entire blame on the Puerto Rican government I suggest you broaden your sources a bit. Quoting from Wikipedia

    The Government of Puerto Rico is a republican form of government with separation of powers, subject to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States.

    (emphasis mine.)

    For more on that, please see https://congressionaldish.com/....

    I doubt that PR is entirely blameless for their present situation, but they've had a lot of help from our congress.