Puerto Rico Faces Island-Wide Blackout Affecting 1.4 Million Ahead of Easter

Puerto Rico experienced a massive island-wide blackout on Wednesday, leaving all 1.4 million customers without electricity just as residents prepared for Easter weekend. The outage, the second major blackout in four months, also disrupted water service for at least 328,000 people and forced businesses and hotels to rely on generators to remain operational. The cause of the outage is still under investigation, with officials from LUMA Energy and Genera PR working to restore power, though full restoration may take up to 72 hours. The blackout intensified public frustration over Puerto Rico's aging and unreliable power infrastructure, which has suffered frequent failures since Hurricane Maria in 2017. Political leaders and residents have called for urgent reforms and questioned the management of the island's power providers amid ongoing high electricity rates and repeated outages. The crisis has disrupted daily life, causing event cancellations, traffic chaos, and renewed calls for accountability and investment in the power grid.