Puerto Rico loses energy as Hurricane Fiona brings risk of ‘catastrophic’ flooding | Engadget

Almost precisely 5 years after Hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico at nighttime, the US territory is as soon as once more going through an influence disaster. On Sunday, LUMA Energy, the corporate that operates the island’s electrical grid, introduced that each one of Puerto Rico had suffered a blackout as a result of Hurricane Fiona, studies Reuters.

With the storm nearing the island’s southwest coast, the National Hurricane Center warned of “catastrophic” flooding as Fiona started producing winds with recorded speeds of 85 miles per hour. Even earlier than making landfall at 3:20PM native time, the storm left a 3rd of LUMA’s clients with out energy. On Twitter, Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi stated the federal government was working to revive energy, however after the occasions of 5 years in the past, there’s fear there received’t be a straightforward repair.

In 2017, Hurricane Maria brought on the most important blackout in US historical past when the Category 5 storm battered Puerto Rico, leaving 3.4 million folks with out energy. The island had solely just lately begun rebuilding its weakened infrastructure, with blackouts a day by day prevalence in some areas. Officials have tried to emphasize that Hurricane Fiona received’t convey a repeat of 2017. “This is not Maria, this hurricane will not be Maria,” Abner Gomez, the top of public security and disaster administration at LUMA Energy, told CNN earlier than Sunday’s energy outage. At the second, the corporate is estimating it could take a number of days to revive energy, and requested clients for “patience” whereas it really works to answer the pure catastrophe.