power's out in puerto rico
All of Puerto Rico just lost power
Puerto Rico is in the dark again. A major power outage swept the entire island Wednesday, leaving more than 1.4 million people in a blackout, The Associated Press reports.
It could take up to 36 hours to restore power, officials said, and the cause of the outage was unknown. The island's power grid has yet to be fully restored following Hurricane Maria, which devastated the American territory in September.
The most recent blackout affected businesses, schools, and traffic, reports AP, but wasn't out of the ordinary for the 40,000 customers who haven't had electricity since the hurricane. Efforts to restore Puerto Rico's electric grid have failed, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said, leaving the island's infrastructure on unsteady ground — several power outages have hit Puerto Rico since September, but Wednesday was the first island-wide blackout since the hurricane struck.
Officials have been scrambling to repair power lines before this year's hurricane season begins in June. A power company spokesperson told AP that crews were looking into what caused the blackout.