CRISIS/FEMA/PUERTO RICO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A main power line that serves the northern half of Puerto Rico failed Thursday [11-9-17], knocking out electricity to seven cities that had only recently regained service and dealing a major setback to the island’s desperate efforts to regain normality.
Seven weeks after Hurricane Maria completely disabled Puerto Rico’s power grid, the island was generating just 18 percent of its electrical capacity, returning service to where it had been two and half weeks ago. On Thursday morning, the island had been at about 43.2 percent of capacity.
The disruption also meant that many people no longer had running water, because pumping stations are powered by electricity…
In a statement Thursday afternoon, the Puerto Rican government said that workers had made progress toward the repairs and that equipment was being put in place to restore the service…
The power failure was the latest blow for Puerto Rico’s beleaguered and bankrupt power company, which has been criticized for awarding a small Montana firm a $300 million contract to fix power lines that included highly unusual clauses that prohibited any audits. Several congressional committees are investigating the deal, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has vowed not to pay for it.”
-Frances Robles, “Puerto Rico Power Line Fails; Darkness Returns to San Juan,” The New York Times online, Nov. 9, 2017