Power Outages from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, USVI Already Longest in US History
The power outages experienced in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands since Hurricane Maria devastated those U.S. island territories last month are the longest in the nation’s history in terms of hours of electricity lost, according
to a report by the economic research firm Rhodium Group.
Hurricane Maria has disrupted 1.25 billion hours of electricity supply for American citizens, well above Hurricane Georges in 1998 or Sandy in 2012, and the number will continue to rise. The report was issued 36 days after Hurricane Maria destroyed the electrical systems of the Caribbean island territories, and recovery of the power grids appears to be weeks, months and, in some cases, years away.
Other major hurricanes have affected electrical systems but for much shorter periods of time. For example, in 2003, about 30 million people spent a few days without electricity in the northeast U.S., losing 592 million hours of consumption. However, in Puerto Rico -- with a population of 3.4 million people -- little more than 20 percent has recovered the service offered by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) over a month after the passing
of the category 4 storm.
The U.S. Virgin Islands, with a smaller population, is also struggling to restore its power grid. As of Oct. 22, only 14.9 percent of households had power in the USVI.
Read more: http://www.sanjuanweeklypr.com/pdf/Oct-30-17/local.pdf (page 2 of 6)