Thirty-one-year-old Shandia Pérez has three children with autism. But, unlike elsewhere on the island, some of the most vulnerable community members kept their electricity on, thanks to rooftop solar panels installed after Maria. As the days passed, many were forced to throw away refrigerators full of rotting food. In the rural community of Adjuntas, located in Puerto Rico’s mountainous interior, residents struggled with boredom and anxiety as they endured aftershocks in darkness. While about 70 percent of power is generated in the south, 70 percent of demand is in the north.Įarthquake damage at the Church of Immaculate Conception in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, and inside a U.S. But in both situations, the problem was essentially the same: Puerto Rico’s electric grid is too centralized to be resilient. With the earthquake, it was the power plants themselves. During Maria, it was the transmission lines that were destroyed across the island. The earthquake’s impact on Puerto Rico’s power grid was the opposite of Maria’s. It was déjà vu for many who had withstood months without electricity after Hurricane Maria, when a year and a half passed before power was fully restored. Another natural gas plant, EcoEléctrica, was also damaged.ĭespite the fact that the vast majority of the physical damage on the island was isolated in the south, all of Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness. The jolts knocked giant boilers off their bases, opened a fissure in one of the turbines, and destroyed the control center where the computers that run the system operate. Its epicenter on the southern coast was mere miles from the Costa Sur power plant, which provides about a quarter of the island’s electricity by burning natural gas and oil. In the predawn hours after the celebration, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake hit, jerking people out of their beds. On Three Kings Day, January 6, families across the island observed one of its most important holidays, with children awakening to gifts left by the biblical kings. Tremors began shaking Puerto Rico just before New Year’s Eve, causing anxiety but only minimally disrupting festivities.

Puerto rico power grid map