Over two weeks after Hurricane Fiona left the 3.3 million residents of Puerto Rico without electricity, an estimated 118,000 homes and businesses were still without it on Thursday.
On September 18, Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico, approximately five years after Hurricane Maria also completely cut out the island’s electrical supply.
On September 24, Fiona struck eastern Canada after making landfall in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. As a result, more than a third of Nova Scotia was left without electricity.
In the early hours of Thursday, Nova Scotia Power, a division of the Canadian energy firm Emera Inc (EMA.TO), reported that roughly 5,200 customers were still without power.
According to data from LUMA Energy, which manages Puerto Rico’s grid, roughly 118,000 customers were without service there on Thursday, up from 101,000 on Wednesday.
Even though it was slow, the rate of restoration was quicker than during Hurricane Maria, when nearly all 1.5 million customers were without power for a week. The grid was still being run at the time by the now-defunct Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA).
Although Maria was a far stronger storm than Fiona, it took PREPA nearly 11 months to restore electricity to all customers.
According to LUMA Energy, service was restored to 1.405 million people, or around 96% of all customers, by late Wednesday. If enough generation is available, service should be restored to 90% of consumers in the hardest-hit areas by Oct. 6.
Units of the American energy contractor Quanta Services Inc. and the Canadian energy company ATCO Ltd. jointly own LUMA.
