The outage forced the government to cancel classes and shutter agencies for the second day in a row on this U.S. territory of 3.2 million people as frustration and anger bubbled over.
“This is unbearable,” said Maribel Hernández, 49, as she wiped her forehead with a small blue washcloth that she hung over her left shoulder.
Officials with Luma, which took over transmission and distribution from Puerto Rico’s Electric Power company last year, have said they don’t know exactly when power would be fully restored but note crews have been working nonstop.The company has said that a circuit-breaker failure could have caused the blackout after a fire erupted late Wednesday at the Costa Sur power plant in southern Puerto Rico, but that it will be weeks before they’ll know the exact cause of the interruption.
García stood outside a small outdoor cafeteria selling eggs and greasy turnovers known as empanadillas, grateful that the owner allowed him to charge his phone for the day as he continued to look for work. In addition, the Costa Sur generation plant, one of four main ones on the island, was damaged during a series of strong earthquakes that struck southern Puerto Rico in recent years.
Felicia Serrano, manager of a small grocery store in a community called Barrio Obrero in the capital of San Juan, said she lost $2,000 worth of merchandise as a result of the blackout. The store runs on a small generator that keeps the lights on but doesn’t have the power to keep large refrigerators running.
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