Nearly eight months after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still plagued with issues related to its power. Of course, we know that much of this is related to the condition of the electric grid before the storm. Still, a major reason why parts of the island remain in darkness today is because of the trifecta of major storms, negligence on the part of government officials and an aging grid that has been long in need of repair.
The New York Times reports that there is evidence that if the power grid in Puerto Rico is irreparable, it is, in many ways, because of human error.
[An] examination of the power grid’s reconstruction — based on a review of hundreds of documents and interviews with dozens of public officials, utility experts and citizens across the island — shows how a series of decisions by federal and Puerto Rican authorities together sent the effort reeling on a course that would take months to correct. The human and economic damage wrought by all that time without power may be irreparable.
Though it became clear before Maria made landfall that it would be a once-in-a-lifetime storm, the island was unprepared for the impact and continued to struggle with decision making long after it occurred. The Times reporting focuses on how the Puerto Rican Power Authority (PREPA) not only failed to request help from other power utilities on the mainland that have generally been contracted to assist with disasters around the country for decades, they also hired Whitefish Energy to handle repair and reconstruction, which turned out to be a disaster.
But it gets worse. FEMA, apparently, was also thoroughly unprepared to handle the recovery.
At the same time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency made a highly unusual decision of its own. Rather than advise Puerto Rico to accept aid from the mainland utilities, FEMA abruptly called in the Army Corps of Engineers — never mind that the corps had never rebuilt a major grid after a storm and by its own account had not made preparations to take on the task in Puerto Rico.
The result was a chaotic tangle of overlapping missions and fumbling coordination.
