Power slowly returns to Puerto Rico after sudden islandwide blackout
April 17, 2025
4,731
Approximately 47% of customers in Puerto Rico have had their power restored after an islandwide outage Wednesday that affected 1.4 million.
Power company LUMA said more than 689,000 customers have had power as of 8:45 a.m. Thursday.
The blackout that hit around 12:40 p.m. Wednesday also left more than 300,000 people without water, snarled traffic and caused businesses to close, all during Holy Week.
It was the second sweeping power outage to rock the island in less than four months, with the last one unfolding on New Year’s Eve.
A tourist couple use their cellphones for light on a street in Old San Juan during a massive power blackout Wednesday night. Jose Jimenez / Getty Images
Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González Colón said in a press conference Wednesday that she was told the outage was due to the transmission of power, not generators. She noted that every day that goes by without electricity, the island’s economy loses $230 million.
Puerto Ricans protest Wednesday night outside La Fortaleza in Old San Juan.Jaydee Lee Serrano / AFP – Getty Images
LUMA Energy stated in a statement Wednesday that the blackout was “caused by a combination of factors,” including a protection system failure as the initial trigger, followed by the presence of vegetation on a transmission line between Cambalache and Manatí, according to the preliminary investigation.
The company stated that service is estimated to be restored for 90% of customers within the next 48 hours.
By Thursday morning, more than 224,000 customers, or about 17%, were temporarily without water service because of the outage, but 83% of customers had a normal supply of drinking water, Puerto Rico’s Water and Sewer Authority said.
“Our personnel are working tirelessly to restore service to affected areas as soon as possible, and we project that the percentage of supply customers will continue to increase as the power system regains its generation capacity,” the agency said.
A legjobb élmény biztosítása érdekében olyan technológiákat használunk, mint a cookie-k az eszközadatok tárolására és/vagy eléréséhez. Ha beleegyezik ezekbe a technológiákba, akkor olyan adatokat dolgozhatunk fel ezen az oldalon, mint a böngészési viselkedés vagy az egyedi azonosítók. A hozzájárulás elmulasztása vagy visszavonása bizonyos funkciókat és funkciókat hátrányosan érinthet.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
