Power back as residents cheer

Many fear the return of electricity will be short-lived as hurricane season approaches again

RICO» It ADJUNTAS, PUERTO was finally a night to celebrate in this village tucked into the mountains of central Puerto Rico.

People pressed TV remote buttons, clicked on fans and plugged in refrigerators as electricity again flowed into homes that had been without power since two major hurricanes devastated the U.S. territory nearly a year ago.

Lights are slowly coming on for the more than 950 homes and businesses across Puerto Rico that remain without power in hard-to-reach areas. Repair crews are sometimes forced to dig holes by hand and scale down steep mountainsides to reach damaged light posts. Electrical poles have to be ferried in one-by-one via helicopter.

It is slow work, and it has stretched nearly two months past the date when officials had promised that everyone in Puerto Rico would be energized.

And even as TVs glow into the night and people like 20year-old delivery man Steven Vilella once again savor favorite foods like shrimp and Rocky Road ice cream, many fear their newly returned normality could be short-lived. Turmoil at the island’s power company and recent winds and rains that knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of people at the start of the new hurricane season have them worried.

“If another storm comes through, we’re going to die. There’s no money left here,” said 66-year-old Marta Bermudez, who still has a blue tarp over her rusting zinc roof. She doesn’t believe the government has enough resources to properly rebuild the power grid amid an 11-year-old recession.

Still, after power was restored to her house on Friday, she celebrated no longer having to eat a diet of mostly rice, bananas and soup or wash clothes by hand in a sink that she and her husband found on the street after Hurricane Irma.

Photos by Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo, The Associated Press Retired resident Ramon Serrano, right, stands outside his home Friday with a lineman from the Puerto Rico Power Authority as they watch a man restore power, which was cut off by Hurricane Irma and Maria in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. For the first time in 10 months, Serrano watched the news on a recent weeknight and went to bed at midnight with his wife. “It's the latest we've been up,” said the 77-year-old.

Joselyn Torres, 17, right, checks on her newborn Thursday at her home that has been without electricity since Hurricane Irma and Maria in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. Torres and her 20-yearold husband Steven Vilella are looking forward to the restoration of power, but like many, fear their newly returned normality could be short-lived.