AILSA CHANG, HOST:
While many Americans will be ringing in the new year with fireworks or watching the ball drop in Times Square, most Puerto Ricans will be in the dark. Early this morning, almost the entire island was hit with a blackout, leaving more than a million people without power. Officials are warning it could take days to restore power, and while widespread blackouts like this are not common in Puerto Rico, localized power outages are. The island's power grid has struggled since Hurricane Maria hit in 2017. Danica Coto covers the Caribbean for the AP and joins us now from Puerto Rico. Welcome.
DANICA COTO: Thank you for having me.
CHANG: What do we know so far about why the power network failed in this case?
COTO: Well, that's a good question, and it's one that many people have been asking themselves since 5:30 this morning. Officials with LUMA Energy, which is the private company that handles transmission and distribution on the island, say that they believe it's an underground power line that failed. But beyond that, there's very little answers at this point, and, you know, customers are becoming rather frustrated at the lack of details.
CHANG: Sure.
COTO: It's still unclear what happened, and it could be several hours or possibly a day or more before we really know what exactly caused the widespread blackout.
CHANG: How are people coping without power there at the moment? Like, what have you been hearing?
COTO: Well, feelings range from frustration to, eh (ph), it happened again. So a lot of people are clearly annoyed, you know, that they had plans to celebrate New Year's. And not everyone can afford a generator on this island of 3.2 million people where the poverty rate is more than 40%. So some people have had to scrap plans. Others are rushing to the grocery store to buy candles and food that doesn't need refrigeration. But overall, there's a lot of frustration coupled with more of the same.
CHANG: And that frustration - where is it being directed?
COTO: Many of the people have been calling for the contract with LUMA, the private power company, to be canceled, as well as the contract with Genera PR, which is another private company that handles the generation of power on the island. And so, of course, these calls have become louder since the blackout occurred. And the new governor who's coming in has pledged to make stabilizing the power grid a priority, and she has said that she would appoint a so-called energy czar to look at the contract with LUMA.
CHANG: Well, why has stabilizing the power grid been so challenging? And is there really a realistic solution in sight?
COTO: Not so far. I mean, Puerto Rico's still depending on generators that FEMA sent a couple years ago, and they've actually requested if they can use those generators for two additional years. So there's still a long ways to go in terms of repairing the grid. And people, you know, do have to remember that even before Hurricane Maria hit as a Category 4 storm, the system was already in shambles in many areas. There were decades of lack of investment and lack of maintenance.
CHANG: Danica Coto. She covers the Caribbean for the Associated Press. Thank you very much for your reporting, and I hope power is restored sooner rather than later.
COTO: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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