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Another blackout hit Puerto Rico Wednesday morning [April 18], the Associated Press reported, cutting off electricity across the whole island and once again undermining the fragile progress made in restoring power in the [seven] months since Hurricane Maria struck.
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority said that it could be 24 to 36 hours before power is restored to the areas that had it. Its priorities are to get electricity back to hospitals, the San Juan Airport, water systems, and financial centers
The outage was caused by a bulldozer hitting a power line while trying to remove a collapsed transmission tower, according to El Nuevo Dia.[1] The company responsible was D. Grimm, a subcontractor for Cobra Energy, which received a $200 million contract to repair Puerto Rico's devastated power grid.
Cobra was selected alongside Whitefish Energy Services in the aftermath of the hurricane, but the deals drew scrutiny from Congress because the companies had limited experience in grid repair on such a large scale.
[...] more than 61,000 utility customers[PDF] haven't had electricity since last September, the US Department of Energy reported earlier this month. Since "customer" typically refers to a household, which can encompass several people, estimates indicate that more than 100,000 people haven't had power since the storm.
[...] The blackout is the largest[2] in US history and is now the second-largest in the world. Only Typhoon Haiyan, one of the largest tropical storms ever to make landfall and the deadliest storm ever to hit the Philippines, had a bigger impact on electricity service.
[1] En Español
[2] As measured in millions of customer hours of lost electricity service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @07:51AM (4 children)
In this day and age we can't distribute generators and string cable across the island in less than a month??! Where's the fucking military??! This is exactly what we are supposed to be using them for while they're up north taking pots shots at each other because they're going nuts! I guess they have to be sent out across the ocean somewhere and blow up other peoples' generators first. After all that's where the money is. Puerto Rico doesn't have any, and now there's little to blow up.
I'm just amazed. Somehow the banks are being paid for sure. The feds could take back a tiny percentage of that bailout money to finance the whole project, as a gift! Fuck!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:09AM (1 child)
Bernie Sanders has proposed replacing their last-century stuff with renewables.
the fucking military
You have misunderstood the mission of USA's military.
That is to blow up shit.
...and when the US Marines were sent to Haiti, they carried guns.
Their mission was to make sure that The Oligarchs there were protected.
Switch off Lamestream Media.
It's turning your brain into mush.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:55AM
If you're talking about the time the Marines were sent to Haiti because of the earthquake, I can speak to that one because I was right in the middle of it. They were sent with guns because black marketeers were stealing all the relief supplies that the UN and everyone else were trying to send and distribute to everyone free of charge. Also, one of their largest, most serious prisons full of their worst, most violent criminals was compromised in the earthquake and all the inmates escaped. Good to have guns in those circumstances, isn't it?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:12AM (1 child)
Even if there were generators to distribute, (there still aren't roads to every part of the country), there is no fuel, and no fuel distribution..
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-03-20/emails-show-fema-silent-amid-chaos-after-hurricane-maria [usnews.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @03:51PM
That's all bullshit. The military is perfectly able to handle all that. The whole thing is about some banker's damn money. The disaster is entirely man made. There, is, NO, excuse! It, is, disgusting! All because we elect psychopaths so we can have free trinkets!