Puerto Rico hit with island-wide blackout

An island-wide power outage has struck Puerto Rico as the U.S. territory’s electric grid struggles to recover after the devastation from Hurricane Maria last year.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the entire island experienced a blackout.

It’s unclear what led to the outage at this time. A spokesman for Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority told CBS News’s David Begnaud that he also did not know the cause.

 

 

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Officials believe it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power to the territory, according to the AP.

About 40,000 residents were still without power at the time of the blackout.

This blackout comes just one week after the island experienced another power outage.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said last week that about 700,000 Americans in Puerto Rico didn’t have power after a line repaired by Montana contracting firm Whitefish Energy had failed.

Puerto Rico’s electric grid has suffered in the months since Hurricane Maria struck the island. The territory announced earlier this year that it would privatize its power system over its “deficient service.”

Updated at 11:49 a.m.