USA TODAY International Edition
STILL NEAR ‘SHUTDOWN’ 5 WEEKS AFTER HURRICANE
Restoring power at top of a long list of pressing needs
They’re still in the dark. Lady Lee Andrews doesn’t know how much longer she can keep her Poet’s Passage souvenir shop afloat without electricity — or tourists.
Sonia Rodriguez relies on a generator to power the elevator in her five-story assisted-living center so residents can get down for their outdoor meals and some relief from the lack of air conditioning.
More than a month after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island with 155-mph winds, three-quarters of the residents are still without power, lining up at banks for cash and gathering at shopping malls, hotels or government buildings just to charge their cellphones.
Police are directing traffic at major intersections without working traffic lights. Water plants are still out of commission, forcing people to gather water from roadside streams and then boil it to be safe from bacteria. Those without home generators are living without refrigeration, air conditioning and anything but natural light. Those with genera-
tors need to pay for gasoline or diesel fuel and haul those volatile liquids in their cars, along with water and daily groceries.
“Nowadays businesses run with the rising sun and close as soon as whatever they have runs out, or they don’t open at all,” said Andrews, 45, as she sat in a dark hall of her shop in Old San Juan. “Now a business of my caliber, which depends on tourism, is completely affected. It’s on total shutdown.”
Even Gov. Ricardo Rosselló concedes that his pledge to restore 95% of power by mid-December is “aggressive.”
The task is daunting as Puerto Rico faces challenges not seen on the U.S. mainland after storms also devastated Texas and Florida.
The entire island lost power after the Category 5 storm that struck Sept. 20 damaged power plants and 80% of the island’s electrical grid, which includes 2,400 miles of transmission lines and 30,000 miles of distribution lines, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Getting help to the island is cumbersome. Supplies and people to fix the power problems have to travel through ports and airports overwhelmed by aid deliveries, building materials, bucket trucks, helicopters and every other necessity.
Puerto Rico’s power grid, saddled with years of financial mismanagement, already was weakened because maintenance and upgrades were deferred.
Col. Jeff Lloyd of the Army Corps of Engineers in Puerto Rico, which the federal government is relying on to help the U.S. territory restore power, would not commit to Rosselló’s mid-December timeline. The corps has ordered $130 million in supplies, including 62,000 telephone poles from the U.S. mainland.
“The governor said that’s an aggressive estimate,” Lloyd said. “We’re going to do everything we can . ... What’s going to be most challenging is the rugged terrain in restoring the grid.”
The project is focused on three tracks, giving priority to life-saving, health and public safety facilities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, working with the governor’s office, has identified 537 sites for emergency generators that are still being delivered and installed across the island. Most generators are delivered by trucks, which are delayed by landslides, missing road signs and lack of cellular service and GPS-aided navigation, said Lisa Hunter, a Army Corps spokeswoman.
Transmission lines that deliver electricity from major power stations also are under repair. Much of that work is being done by Montana-based Whitefish Energy, which specializes in rugged mountainous terrain.
“The interior of the country is all mountains with minimal road access,” said Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski. “This is why we use helicopters to access points.”
The company brought four helicopters to Puerto Rico to carry workers to the tops of transmission towers and to function as sky cranes for equipment and lines. The National Guard and PREPA, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, have more helicopters to support Whitefish operations.
Techmanski said recent rains are hampering his 300 workers now on the island. Helicopters can’t be used in pouring rain. And an access road his crews built flooded a few days later.
“You can’t drive a vehicle up a road when it has 3 feet of running water on it,” Techmanski said.
In the Égida Señora Perpetuo Socorro assisted-living center, the 67 residents have power from a generator for about four hours in the morning and four hours at night. That’s when they have running water and an elevator, but still no air conditioning.
They have their meals on an outdoor patio sheltered from the sun. But administrator Rodriguez points out she doesn’t always have enough money to buy diesel for the generator.
“Sadly, if there comes a time all our resources end, those with nowhere to go would have to be relocated to a shelter,” she said. But so far they have managed: “While there’s diesel there is hope.”