Electricity has been restored in Puerto Rico following an outage on Wednesday that left the island in darkness. It was the first since Hurricane Maria swept through the U.S. territory in September.
A transmission line was accidentally damaged by an excavator, The Associated Press.
After the outage, Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) that in trying to restore power, it would prioritize hospitals, a major airport, sewer and water pumping stations and banking centers.
By Thursday afternoon, the energy provider that service had been restored to 97 percent of its customers — the same level as before Wednesday's blackout. Some 40,000 people still lack regular electricity seven months after Hurricane Maria, according to the AP.
Following the outage, called for the cancellation of a contract with D. Grimm, the subcontracting company responsible for the accident, El Nuevo DÃa.
The governor Wednesday:
I have suggested to the Board of that they cancel the contract with the Cobra subcontractor that is directly responsible for this power outage. This is the second power failure that has affected the people of Puerto Rico in less than two weeks.
— Ricardo Rosselló (@ricardorossello)
D. Grimm was also blamed for a power failure the previous week, when as crews were clearing a forested area to access utility poles with transmission lines. In an effort to restore power to people after the hurricane, the subcontractor inadvertently cut electricity to half the island's population.
Justo González, head of PREPA, The New York Times that D. Grimm had been fired. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
All of Puerto Rico could have its energy restored by late May, according to an AP report citing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps in early April that it would provide additional resources to expand power restoration efforts in Puerto Rico, increasing an existing contract by $140.5 million, to $510.6 million.
Not everyone in Puerto Rico is waiting for authorities to strengthen the island's fragile infrastructure. In January, one family started building a solar power system which kept their lights on during Wednesday's outage, CNN .
This year's starts in June and ends in November.
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