By Nicole
Acevedo
Five years ago, Iraida Quiñones survived Hurricane María, one of the worst storms to hit Puerto Rico and the deadliest natural disaster to hit the US territory in 100 years.
On Friday he was preparing for the now Hurricane Fiona, which was going to bring heavy rains and winds to the island during the weekend.
"That's what scared us, that it's the same date as Maria
," said Quiñones, 87, who lives in San Juan.
"We associate those kinds of bad moments with Maria."
For Quiñones and other Puerto Ricans, the continued fragility of Puerto Rico's power grid five years later is a constant source of concern in a region that awaits the possibility of hurricanes every fall.
Consequences of Hurricane Maria in 2017.AP
“Our network may be functional, but it is fragile,” said Sergio Marxuach, policy director of the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan think tank based in Puerto Rico, adding that the slightest storm wind can easily trigger that almost 500,000 homes are left without electricity.
"Five years later, we are still exposed to the same risk
," said Marxuach, who recently completed an analysis of the state of Puerto Rico's electrical system.
“Progress will continue to be slow unless we find a solution” so that all the federal and local agencies involved better coordinate with each other.
Vanelis Rodríguez, a resident of Hato Rey, reported that he is "anticipating that the power will go out" this weekend due to tropical storm Fiona, because
"we all know how the electrical system works here."
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Puerto Rico's deteriorating power grid acts continuously, causing constant blackouts and voltage drops throughout the island.
Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. The category four hurricane's roaring winds decimated the island's fragile electrical system, causing the second longest blackout in the world.
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At least 2,975 people died in the wake of Maria, with most of those deaths attributed to a lack of electricity and resulting interruptions to medical and other services.
The blackout not only affected residences;
nursing homes and hospitals were without power for long periods of time.
Another 514 Puerto Ricans, most of them over 65, are estimated to have died in the United States as a result of the hurricane "due to the systematic effects on those displaced," according to a study published this month by the British Medical Journal Open.
More than 200,000 people left Puerto Rico and moved to the mainland in the aftermath of Maria, mostly because of the prolonged power outage following the storm's devastation.
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“I had no electricity, no generator.
It was difficult, very difficult,” said Quiñones, who left the island two weeks after the storm and stayed with his children on the mainland for several months.
“The restoration of emergency power after Hurricane María lasted more than a year
,” according to Josué Colón, executive director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the bankrupt public corporation that manages the power generation units in Puerto Rico. island.
"We live prepared"
Residents like Rodriguez have experienced longer service restoration times, poor customer service and voltage fluctuations that often damage appliances and other home electronics since June, when Luma Energy, a private Canadian-American company, took over charge of Puerto Rico's power transmission and distribution system, according to an analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a nonprofit research organization.
Puerto Rico relies mostly on imported oil to power its electricity.
There have been some moves, led mainly by non-profit groups and various private companies, to use renewable energy, especially solar panels, to offset the tenuous power grid.
Although the Biden Administration and
the Island Government have set a goal of achieving 100% renewable electricity by 2050,
renewable energy generation is currently less than 4%.
At a recent congressional hearing on turnaround efforts, Shay Bahramirad, a senior vice president at Luma Energy, indicated that the company had done more in the last 15 months to increase energy efficiency than it had in the last decade. , including connecting more customers to solar power.
This is the weather forecast in Puerto Rico for Tropical Storm Fiona
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But for most island residents, widespread blackouts and noisy generators have become the norm in Puerto Rico.
Quiñones even lost power Thursday, days before Tropical Storm Fiona hit Puerto Rico.
He claimed that he turned on his generator and waited for the power to come back on.
But for many Puerto Ricans like Rodríguez, who don't have access to or can't afford a generator, being constantly plunged into darkness often serves as a reminder of how slow Puerto Rico's rebuilding has been.
“We live prepared,” says Rodríguez, 35.
“We always make sure we are stocked with batteries, oil lamps and water.”
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A few weeks ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency made $9.5 billion available to Puerto Rico to rebuild its power grid, the largest public infrastructure project in history.
Only 40 power grid reconstruction projects have been approved so far, all of which are expected to be funded with this aid, Anne Bink, associate administrator for FEMA's Office of Response and Recovery, said during the Congressional hearing on Thursday.
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Hurricane Maria left 90,000 million dollars in damage.
Congress appropriated at least $71 billion for general recovery and reconstruction operations, of which $62 billion has been made available to the island.
About 72% of those funds have yet to reach local communities, mainly because permanent reconstruction work on the island began in late 2020, according to Deputy Jenniffer González, a non-voting member of the Puerto Rico Congress.
Puerto Rico has already spent $19.9 billion in aid, according to the Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Residency.
The Fiscal Oversight and Management Board that oversees Puerto Rico's finances has said that the remaining bulk of reconstruction aid is scheduled to be disbursed after fiscal year 2025.
Meanwhile, residents braced for another tropical storm, albeit less destructive than Hurricane Maria.
“What happened with María was very violent and much of the island has not yet recovered,” Quiñones said.