The “Island of Enchantment” has gone dark just before the New Year's Eve celebrations with a widespread blackout affecting almost the entire island and with more than 1.2 million customers without electricity.
A blackout affected almost all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the US territory prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve.
More than 1.2 million of the 1.47 million customers were without power, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution on the island.
It was not immediately clear what caused the widespread outage or when service would be restored. Luma representatives did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
In a post on X, Luma said he was in contact with the teams and companies that oversee electricity generation in Puerto Rico to resolve the blackout. He indicated he would provide details as soon as possible.
A spokesperson for Genera PR, which oversees power generation, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Puerto Rico continues to deal with chronic blackouts blamed on a crumbling power grid that was devastated by Hurricane Maria, a powerful Category 4 storm that hit the island in September 2017.
The system was already in decline before the storm due to years of lack of maintenance and investment.