Hurricane Ernesto knocked out power to a large percentage of the people in Puerto Rico despite being a relatively minor natural disaster for the U.S. territory.
What's happening?
Though the storm turned north and had only just strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane before it hit Puerto Rico, it dumped up to 10 inches of rain, CNN reported. Winds up to 85 miles per hour were in the low range for hurricanes, but 718,000 customers were without power as of the evening of Wednesday, August 14, according to the New York Times.
Up to 200,000 people were still without power Monday morning as the storm veered away from the U.S. coast, NPR reported.
"This shows how fragile the electrical system is, seven years after Hurricane Maria," Villalba Mayor Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz told the Times. "In my town, we had a lot of rain, but there was not significant wind. There is no logical reason why our town has no service."
Why is this important?
The storm was relatively minor, and some Puerto Ricans wondered why so many people lost power, according to NPR. Dangerous weather made the electricity issues more problematic.
It's not just air conditioners and fans that Puerto Ricans need to manage the island's summer heat and humidity, including heat indexes over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius). Life-saving medical equipment cannot be operated; 23 hospitals were using generators, per the Associated Press.
The power outages also left some residents without access to drinking water. More than 120,000 customers were affected by interruptions to water filtration, per CNN.
Hurricanes are becoming more destructive in the United States because of rising global temperatures, and much of that is the result of increasing rainfall. Sea level rise and warmer ocean temperatures contribute to the increased intensity of these storms, and this hurricane season has long been feared for its potential activity.
In July, Hurricane Beryl came ashore in Texas, cutting power to millions of customers in the Houston area, some for well over a week.
What's being done about the power grid in Puerto Rico?
Many residents have turned to solar power, the AP reported, which can provide domestic energy even when the grid is down. There are 117,000 rooftop installations today versus 8,000 when Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017, knocking out power to some for more than a year. Repairs are still being made, though, and the grid remains unreliable. Power can go out even on beautiful days, NPR said.
"You should not have 700,000 customers, probably close to 2 million people, losing power in a storm that basically brought a lot of rain and some moderate wind gusts but not much else," Adrian Florido reported, saying people blamed Luma Energy since it took over the previously government-run infrastructure in 2021.
It has reduced its line workers by two-thirds, and "outages are getting longer and more frequent."
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