Puerto Rico Power Outage: Crews scramble to restore power after an island-wide power outage

LUMA Energy, which runs the island’s power grid, expects power to be restored within 24 hours of the incident, Acevedo said at the press conference.

The hospital’s intensive care unit temporarily lost power

The intensive care unit at Mayagüez Medical Center on the island’s west coast was temporarily without power due to problems with backup generators, prompting LUMA to focus particularly on restoring power there, officials said.

Four patients on that floor were intubated and would have been transferred to a floor with power had care not been restored quickly, officials previously said.

Home Secretary Noelia García Bardales said all hospitals were operational as of Thursday afternoon, whether their power had been restored or they were running from a generator.

“All hospitals are working without setbacks. All elective surgeries were performed today without any inconvenience. All dialysis services are performed without delays,” said García Bardales.

Puerto Rico’s airports were operational and no flight cancellations were reported as a result of the outage, officials said.

Police have a plan to circulate traffic with the lights off, but “we ask for cooperation from drivers on the roads,” Pierluisi said.

Ordered replacement power plant parts, official says

Firefighters were putting out blazes affecting two substations at the facility, the Bureau of Puerto Rico Fire Departments said on Facebook on Wednesday.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, Acevedo said Thursday morning, adding that the equipment is up to date with maintenance inspections.

Clean-up operations at the facility are underway and replacement parts have been identified and ordered, Acevedo said.

Correction: In an earlier version of this story, the name of Puerto Rico’s leading telecommunications and infrastructure engineer was misspelled. It’s Josue Colon.