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

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 The island only has one electric company, and prior to Maria, it was $9 billion in debt and utilizing outdated infrastructure and equipment.

Comments

Re:How is that possible??

[tomhath]

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.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Nidi62]

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.