Mass power outages hit Puerto Rico on New Year's Eve: Here's what to know - USA TODAY

Most of Puerto Rico was hit by a major power outage on Tuesday and it could be until the early days of January before power is restored.
Puerto Rico’s power company said it began working to restore power to the island early in the morning. By 10:30 p.m. local time, Luma Energy, the power company that supplies the territory, said it had restored service to 42%, or over 616,000, of its customers.
Earlier Tuesday afternoon, around 1.2 million customers in Puerto Rico, or 82.2% of the electricity company’s clients, were spending New Year’s Eve without electricity.
Service was restored to 16 hospitals, including medical center and municipal hospital of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, Luma Puerto Rico posted on X.
The following were the regions most affected by the outages as of 10:30 p.m. local time, according to Luma:
Luma said midday Tuesday that power would be restored to the island in 24 to 48 hours.
Puerto Rico experienced a massive power outage beginning at about 5:30 a.m. local time Tuesday morning.
“While the cause of the outage is under investigation, preliminary findings point to a failure in an underground line,” Luma said in a statement to Reuters.
Ivan Baez, a spokesperson for power generator Genera, said the electric line that’s believed to have failed was operated by Luma and has impacted plants run by Genera and private generators, Reuters reported.
The U.S. territory sees about 6 million visitors a year and is a popular vacation spot around Christmas and New Year’s.
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, a major hub with frequent flights to and from New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia, said it is operating on generators.
Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz, or email her at jgomez@gannett.com(This story has been updated to add new information and to add a new video.)