Hurricane Fiona Knocks Out Power to Puerto Rico
Facts
- On Monday morning, areas of Puerto Rico woke up without power following the landfall of Hurricane Fiona on Sunday. The Category 1 storm caused widespread flooding and landslides across the island as it moved west toward the Dominican Republic.
- Officials stated that power had begun to be restored on Sunday night but reconnecting the entire grid could take days.
- The island’s power grid remains weak following the damage it sustained in 2017 from Hurricane Maria, a category 5 storm that left more than 3k people dead and caused the largest blackout in US history.
- Meteorologists have warned that “this is not over.” The forecast for Puerto Rico includes up to 30in. of rainfall for the southern region and up to 15in. for the eastern region of the Dominican Republic.
- On Sunday, Biden declared a state of emergency for Puerto Rico, authorizing the use of federal resources for emergency purposes and disaster relief efforts.
- As of Monday afternoon, more than 1.3M customers are still without power according to PowerOutage.us. Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi has called the damage “catastrophic.” On Monday, all public school classes and government offices were closed, except for essential personnel and first responders.
Sources: BBC News, Reuters, NBC, CNN, and Poweroutage.
Narratives
- Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by NBC. Puerto Rico lost all electric power in 2017 due to Hurricane Maria. Five years later very little has changed. The power grid is fragile and remains vulnerable to tropical storms, a fact proven by the effects of Hurricane Fiona, a much weaker storm. Federal and local agencies have so far failed to find a solution for coordinating and working together to protect Puerto Ricans.
- Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by T&D World. While it’s true that reconstruction of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, including its power grid, after Hurricane Maria has only started recently, efforts to coordinate agencies are already well underway. This is precisely why necessary measures to restore electrical services to customers were able to be taken quickly following the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Fiona.