Thousands still without power weeks after Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico
High temperatures, rain and mosquitoes make life unbearable for those still affected by the longest blackout in US history
2022-10-12 20:26:10 - VI News Staff
Alexis Robles has slept a mere three hours a night since Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico on 18 September, causing a total blackout across the Caribbean island.
Robles, 52, a systems analyst in the seaside town of Cabo Rojo in south-west Puerto Rico, has been living without power for 25 days.
At night, the temperature barely dips below 80F, and Robles wakes up after an hour or two covered in sweat. The days are marked by high temperatures and rain, and without a fan or air conditioning the mosquitoes are unbearable.
Robles lives in an 80-apartment condominium complex with a backup generator that produces only enough electricity to power the water pump and light the communal areas after dark. Those with somewhere else to go have left, he says; the remaining residents are just trying to get by.
“We have no electricity during the day, people here are desperate, just trying to survive, worried that this could end up like Maria,” said Robles.
Fiona, a category 1 storm when it struck the island and the first major hurricane of the 2022 season, hit Puerto Rico exactly five years after hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall two weeks apart, destroying much of the island’s electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure, leading to thousands of preventable deaths and the longest blackout in US history.
The storm left the vast majority of Puerto Rico and its 3 million residents without power or water for several days.
After Maria, Robles and his neighbours were left without power for five months. Now, three and half weeks after Fiona, they have no idea when electricity will be restored.
“What infuriates us the most is that Luma is claiming most of the island has power, when that is obviously not true,” said Robles, referring to the private US-Canadian consortium that took over electricity transmission and distribution in June 2021.
Luma claims it has restored power to 99% of homes and businesses. But three and a half weeks on, about 20,000 customers – the equivalent of 40,000 people – remain without power, according to the company’s own figures. The worst-affected neighbourhoods are in the south and south-west of the island, where Fiona made landfall.