In the last week, there have been several news stories about the recent island-wide power outage in Puerto Rico, the tenuous condition of Puerto Rico’s power grid, and the fact that hurricane season
is right around the corner. Last Wednesday,
a construction vehicle removing a fallen electrical tower got too close to an
energized line and caused an electrical ground fault that led to an island-wide
blackout. Luckily, power was not out across the island for long, but the outage
once again drew attention to Puerto Rico’s efforts to rebuild following
Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico faced difficulties with its power grid even before Hurricane Maria made landfall,
but Maria’s high winds and flooding damaged 75 percent of the island’s
distribution lines. Despite the progress that has been made since Maria struck,
it is clear that Puerto Rico has not fully recovered from Maria’s devastation.
