By Rich McKay and Ivelisse Rivera
SAN JUAN (Reuters) -Puerto Ricans were without electricity on New Year's Eve after a grid failure left nearly all of the island without power, although energy was slowly being restored.
Around 58% of clients were without power at 9 p.m. (0100 GMT) on Tuesday, down from 90% earlier in the day, according to the website of energy distribution company LUMA Energy. Puerto Rico has long dealt with chronic power outages as its infrastructure crumbles.
It will likely take 24 to 48 hours to turn the lights back on, LUMA said in a statement. It added later that power had been restored to some critical facilities, including Centro Medico and Municipal Hospital in San Juan.
"While the cause of the outage is under investigation, preliminary findings point to a failure in an underground line," LUMA said.
Ivan Baez, a spokesperson for power generator Genera, said in a local radio interview that the line believed to have failed was operated by LUMA and brought down plants belonging to Genera, as well as private generators.
LUMA did not answer direct questions about responsibility for the power lines.
Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said in a post on social media that LUMA and Genera "need to speed up bringing back online the generator units ... and keep the people informed about the measures they're taking to bring service back to the whole island."
'MORE THAN A DECADE IN THE MAKING'
Ramon Luis Nieves, 49, an attorney in San Juan and a former senator on the island, said that New Year's Eve is typically a time for family reunions, popping champagne bottles and watching fireworks. The power outage could mute celebrations this year, he said.
"My wife and I need to figure it out," he said. "We can't visit my wife's family in the dark."
He added that he's not surprised by the outage, especially after Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that hit the island hard in 2017.
Nieves has long been a critic of operators of the power grid.
"This disaster has been more than a decade in the making," he said. "The (power) generators are old, long past their life expectancy and the operators have failed to properly invest for years."
Such sentiment is common on the Caribbean island, a U.S. territory whose residents are U.S. citizens but do not have voting representation in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections. Protesters have called for the island's government to cancel its contract with LUMA.
In response to a 2022 protest, LUMA said it had "inherited an electrical system that suffered years, in fact decades, of abandonment."
Steven Pacheco, a 55-year-old former lineman on the territory, was visiting for the holidays from St. Petersburg, Florida.
He said it's frustrating for everyone to be "constantly on edge, anticipating that these emergencies could happen again."
Jenniffer González, who takes office as governor of Puerto Rico on Thursday, said on social media that she is forming an energy task force to address the frequent blackouts.
"We cannot continue with an energy system that fails our people so often," she wrote. "Events like this morning's blackout and the uncertainty of a prompt restoration of power to the island continue to affect our economy and quality of life."
(Reporting Ivelisse Rivera in San Juan and Kylie Madry in Asheville, North Carolina, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing Alistair Bell, Aurora Ellis and Neil Fullick)