Puerto Rico Blackout Enters Second Day – Entire Island Of 3.5 Million People Without Power

from Zero Hedge

The 3.5 million people of Puerto Rico are entering their second day with no power after a substation fire knocked out service to the entire island. The power outage has left schools scrambling to cancel classes and public hospitals forced to cancel surgeries.

Perhaps even worse, the outage caused numerous fires across the island as a result of malfunctioning generators, including at the upscale Vanderbilt hotel in the popular tourist area of Condado and at the mayor’s office in the northern coastal town of Catano.

While Puerto Rico’s Governor Padilla and the utility’s CEO, Javier Quintana, have said they expect service to be restored by this morning, many Puerto Ricans are dubious saying that the economic slump has affected the government’s ability to maintain basic infrastructure. According to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of people took to social media to criticize the Electric Power Authority, noting they already pay bills on average twice that of the U.S. mainland.

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