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A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 21 OctOber 2017

What Puerto Rico is doing to get the power back after storm

By BEN FOX distribution poles and lines.
Associated Press The storm’s path was ideal
BARCELONETA, Puerto Rico for taking down the entire
(AP) — Electrical linemen grid. Most of Puerto Rico’s
descend from helicopters, generating capacity is
balancing on steel girders along the southern coast
90 feet high on transmission and most consumption is
towers in the mountains in the north around San
of central Puerto Rico, far Juan, with steel and alu-
from any road. At the same minum transmission towers
time, crews fan out across up to 90 feet (27 meters)
the battered island, erect- tall running through the
ing light poles and power mountains in the middle.
lines in a block by block At least 10 towers fell along
slog. A month after Hur- the most important trans-
ricane Maria rolled across mission line that runs to the
the center of Puerto Rico, capital, entangling it with
the power is still out for the a secondary one that runs
vast majority of people on parallel and that lost about
the island as the work to re- two dozen towers in a
store hundreds of miles of hard-to-reach area in the
transmission lines and thou- center of the island.
sands of miles of distribution “It reminds me of a fireball
lines grinds on for crews toil- In this Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 photo, a brigade from the Electric Power Authority repairs that just burned every-
ing under a blazing tropical distribution lines damaged by Hurricane Maria in the Cantera community of San Juan, thing in its path,” said Brig.
sun. And it won’t get done Puerto Rico. The storm struck after the Authority had filed for bankruptcy in July, put off Gen. Diana Holland, com-
soon without more work- maintenance and had finished dealing with outages from Hurricane Irma. mander of the Army Corps
ers, more equipment and (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti) of Engineers unit working
more money, according Rossello said Thursday that ing on their balconies and on the southeastern coast to clear debris and restore
to everyone involved in the about 20 percent of the flocking to any open res- near Yabucoa as a Cat- the grid, with nearly 400
effort. “It’s too much for us island has service and he taurants for relief from day- egory 4 storm, with maxi- troops on the ground.
alone,” Nelson Velez, a re- has pledged to get that to time temperatures above mum sustained winds of The storm also struck at a
gional director for the Puer- 95 percent by Dec. 31. For 90 degrees. about 154 mph (248 kph). terrible time. The Puerto
to Rican power authority, now, though, most of the “I thought we would we It passed out of the territory Rico Electric Power Au-
said as he supervised crews island’s 3.4 million people have power in the metro about 12 hours later near thority filed for bankruptcy
working along a busy street suffer without air condition- area by now,” said Pablo Barceloneta in the north, in July. It has put off badly
in Isla Verde, just east of ing or basic necessities. Martinez, an air condition- still with sustained winds needed maintenance and
San Juan, on a recent af- Many have resorted to us- ing technician, shaking his of about 115 mph (185 had just finished dealing
ternoon. “We have just so ing washboards, now fre- head in frustration. kph). The onslaught was with outages from Hur-
many, so many areas af- quently seen for sale along Hurricane Maria, which sufficient to knock down ricane Irma in early Sep-
fected.” the side of the road, to caused at least 49 deaths hundreds of transmission tember. “You stop do-
The office of Gov. Ricardo clean clothes, and sleep- on the island, made landfall towers and thousands of ing your typical deferred
maintenance, and so you
Venezuela: become even that much
more susceptible to a
Opposition claims evidence of tampered vote count storm like Maria and Irma
coming and blowing down
your towers, water com-
By JORGE RUEDA results from a single race, certified by poll workers apathy, strategic missteps ing up in your substations
Associated Press in industrial Bolivar state, representing multiple po- and a series of pre-election and flooding them,” said
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) where pro-government litical parties. Electoral au- maneuvers by the govern- Tom Lewis, president of the
— Venezuela’s opposi- candidate Justo Noguera thorities had no immediate ment to suppress turnout. U.S. division of Louis Berger,
tion presented evidence was declared the winner comment. Pre-election polls predict- which has been supplying
this week of possible ballot by just 1,471 votes over op- For the opposition, the dis- ed that popular outrage generators in Puerto Rico
tampering in gubernatorial position candidate Andres puted figures represent a over triple-digit inflation, to clients that include the
elections, seeking to bolster Velasquez. glimmer of hope following widespread food shortages Federal Emergency Man-
its claim that its shock loss The opposition coalition days of internal feuding in and the recent crackdown agement Agency. “Every-
at the polls was the result of said the results on the Na- which crestfallen leaders on dissent gave the oppo- thing becomes that much
fraud. tional Electoral Council’s have alternately blamed sition a virtual lock on the more sensitive to any kind
The Democratic Unity website don’t match the their big loss in Sunday’s majority of Venezuela’s 23 of damage whether it be
Roundtable’s claim rests on tallies from 11 ballot boxes regional elections on voter governorships. q from wind or water.” q