Island-wide blackout hits Puerto Rico as residents prepare for Easter weekend

Island-wide blackout hits Puerto Rico as residents prepare for Easter weekend

San Juan, Puerto Rico (AP) — An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the largely Catholic residents of the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend, officials said.

All 1.4 million clients on the island were without power, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The Associated Press. “The entire island is without generation,” he said.

Hotels were at near-capacity, with thousands of tourists celebrating Easter vacations on the island.

Meanwhile, at least 78,000 clients were without water, with officials warning that power likely won’t be fully restored for another 48 to 72 hours.

“This is unacceptable,” said Josué Colón, the island’s so-called energy czar and former executive director of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority.

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years. Gov. Jenniffer González, who was traveling, said officials were “working diligently” to address the outage.
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