Power flickers on in Puerto Rico after island-wide blackout

Generators restored electricity to some parts of the island Tuesday afternoon following an early morning blackout across the island, energy company LUMA said. Nearly 45,000 customers had regained power, the power company said. But that was only 3% of the roughly 1.4 million people hit by the blackout, the company said. Two hospitals in Puerto Rico’s capital were back online, the company said. It could take as long as two days to restore power to the rest of the island, according to LUMA.

What caused the outage? The cause was under investigation Monday, but preliminary assessments indicate that an issue with an underground line caused the blackout, the company said. The company was providing regular updates on social media every two hours until power was restored.

Have government officials said anything about this? Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi on Tuesday demanded that energy providers solve the problems that created the blackout and explain how it occurred. Pierluisi’s administration was in communication with LUMA and energy company Genera. The LUMA said it was communicating with Pierluisi and other government officials to address the situation. The company holds a contract with the island to provide power while the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority struggles to emerge from bankruptcy.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report in The Sift from earlier this year about storms that were looming above Puerto Rico.