More than 1 million electric customers remain without power in Puerto Rico about three days after Hurricane Fiona swept across the island.

Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico during the afternoon of Sept. 18, dumping more than 20 inches of rain in some areas while causing flash flooding and mudslides. A day later, nearly all of the island's more than 1.4 million electric customers tracked by PowerOutage.us were in the dark. Nearly 1.1 million LUMA Energy LLC customer outages were reported as of 11 a.m. ET on Sept. 21.

LUMA Energy is the operator of Puerto Rico's transmission and distribution system. The utility said its crews had restored power to about 300,000 customers as of 1:30 p.m. ET Sept. 20, with more than 2,000 workers "working under unstable conditions to repair the electrical grid and restore service in Puerto Rico as quickly and safely as possible," according to its most recent outage update.

"Despite the fact that there are challenges and that there is still much to be done to restore service, LUMA and all our collaborators will not rest until all customers have electrical service and the entire electrical network is reenergized," Abner Gómez, LUMA's director of public safety, said in a statement.

Calls for investigation

The preexisting conditions of the island's electric grid and LUMA's response to the outages have prompted criticism from U.S. lawmakers, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

"The electric grid is almost 50 years out of date," Schumer said Sept. 20 on the floor of the U.S. Senate. "It's particularly susceptible to hurricanes. It hasn't even been repaired since the damage Hurricane Maria five years ago put upon it. And yet we've given lots of federal money for the reestablishment or the rebuilding of the grid and very little has happened."

Maria struck the island Sept. 20, 2017, as a Category 5 hurricane, decimating its power grid and setting off what has been called the longest blackout in the history of the U.S. The hurricane led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and occurred several months after the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, and several other public agencies in Puerto Rico had filed for bankruptcy amid an extended recession.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Sept. 20 also called for federal authorities to investigate the situation in Puerto Rico and LUMA Energy.

"While I fully support relief efforts underway to help Puerto Rico, I am convinced that we need long-term structural support for the island, not just band-aids that take us from one crisis to the next," James said. "I am calling for a federal investigation into LUMA and for critical upgrades and system improvements so that Puerto Ricans are never again left in the dark."

LUMA, a joint venture of ATCO Ltd. company Canadian Utilities Ltd. and Quanta Services Inc., took over operation of Puerto Rico's 18,000-mile electric system in 2020 under a 15-year contract with PREPA. LUMA won a competitive bidding process to "modernize and operate" the island's electric grid following devastating storms and after Puerto Rico's then-governor in October 2019 unveiled a $20.3 billion, 10-year grid modernization plan.

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