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- Power restored to nearly all of Puerto Rico (abcnews.go.com)
Power has been restored to nearly all of Puerto Rico less than 48 hours after a major outage plunged the island into darkness. LUMA Energy, the island’s private power company, announced early Friday morning that service had been restored to 98.8% of customers, or approximately 1.5 million people.
The company had initially projected 90% restoration by Friday afternoon but surpassed that goal much earlier than expected. While crews continue working to fully restore power, LUMA warned that some customers may experience temporary interruptions due to limited generation.
The company prioritized critical infrastructure, and nearly all hospitals, along with most water and telecommunication systems, have been reconnected. All correctional institutions have also had power restored.
According to LUMA, the outage was likely caused by a combination of factors, including a failure in the protection system and vegetation interfering with a transmission line. This latest incident follows a string of blackouts in recent years, including a New Year’s Eve outage that left much of the island without power for two days. These recurring issues have spurred many residents to install solar panels and batteries, and have fueled protests against LUMA, which took over the island’s power transmission and distribution in 2021.
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- Power restored to nearly all of Puerto Rico (abcnews.go.com)