Puerto Rico`s Governor Declares State of Emergency

More than half the clients of the Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority (PREPA) have not had their service restored 24 hours after the massive blackout that left the island in the dark yesterday (Wednesday) at 2:30 pm.

The government authorities and PREPA stated that at least 200,000 clients—out of a total of 1,475,000—had their electricity service restored this afternoon.

The system’s entire recovery was originally expected to take less than 24 hours, but today they explained that they’ve had some setbacks in the process of reenergizing the lines and power plants.

PREPA’s executive director, Javier Quintana, pointed out that when power plants come online to provide electricity to clients, they could go offline again if the energy demand exceeds the offer.

“I anticipated yesterday that this would be – or could-  be solved in 24 hours, but I left the door open for the possibility of issues we couldn’t foresee”, García Padilla said at a press conference.  “A unit in Cambalache was turned on, and it was generating power, but its breaker didn’t let the power flow out. At about 2:00 am, we managed to get it to supply electricity to clients.”

“We couldn’t foresee that the breaker would block the unit’s outflow,” he added. “At this time, according to what we anticipated yesterday, we should’ve had more than 200,000. But there are surely more now (clients with their electricity restored), since this conference started.”

For his part, Quintana said that they still expect to restore the service for half their clients later on today.

“Last night, we connected the vast majority of the gas turbines, which helps us bring bigger power plants back online. This morning we started with 130,000, and now we have 200,000. The goal still is to bring back half of our clients by the afternoon, and to normalize operations by tomorrow.”

Although García Padilla also hopes that the system will be completely restored by tomorrow, he urged citizens to pay attention to tonight’s government messages to know what the instructions will be for public employees and public school students Friday.

“If PREPA’s plan works, as we understand it should, tomorrow most people should have their service restored, and we should be on our way back to normalcy,” García Padilla stated.

“But we will check on the progress this afternoon, and we will notify on whatever is certain,” the governor said, adding a reminder that it wasn’t until 9:00 pm last night that the plans for today were disclosed.

The lack of electricity service has also resulted in the failure of the Puerto Rico’s Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) services for 340,000 of their clients.

PRASA’s executive president, Alberto Lázaro, explained that it could take up to 24 hours after the electricity comes back to restore the water service for some sectors, since the pumping machines need the electrical power to work.

On the other hand, García Padilla announced that he signed an executive order to declare a state of emergency for Puerto Rico due to the collapse of the system. This enables the activation of various assistance services from several agencies, such as the National Guard and the NAP (Nutrition Assistance Program). It also facilitates the ingress of services from federal agencies, such as FEMA.

Meanwhile, the governor reported that this emergency has already taken one life, that of a man from Gurabo. Preliminary investigations suggest that the 48-year-old man was found with no vital signs, and it was attributed to the inhalation of gases from an electric power generator.

There have been reports of other related incidents, such as people who have lit candles incorrectly. In one of these cases, they placed the candle on top of the electric generator, and when they opened the tank lid, the gas that escaped came in contact with the flame and caused an explosion.

The breakdown that caused the blackout happened at about 2:30 pm yesterday, when a breaker from the Aguirre Power Plant in Salinas exploded.

This explosion caused a fire that damaged two 230,000-volt transmission lines.

García Padilla said he visited the power plant today, where he spoke with the officers investigating the fire, both from the Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps and its federal counterpart.

Both sides confirmed there was no criminal intent, which still leaves them the task of finding out what caused the explosion.

Ángel Crespo, director of the Firefighters Corps, said that “the spectrum” of causes “is too broad,” and he expects the process of finding the cause “to take days, even weeks.”

According to today’s publications by El Nuevo Día, this was the worst blackout in 36 years. In 1980, an employee mistakenly activated a breaker, which caused a short circuit, generating a chain reaction that turned the entire system off.