Puerto Rico must brace for more bad weather next weekend

Energy Czar Josué Colón Ortiz (Facebook via Jenniffer González Colón)

By The Star Staff

A tropical wave in the Atlantic has the potential to develop into a cyclone this week and may approach the Caribbean by next weekend, according to Ernesto Rodríguez, director of the National Weather Service office in San Juan.

On Sunday, some 150,000 homes lost power because of the heavy rains and high gusts of wind brought by the passage of Hurricane Erin over the northern Caribbean, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The eye of the hurricane was some 200 miles away from Puerto Rico at 11 a.m., at which time the storm was maintaining maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (mph) and was moving west-northwest at 13 mph.

Now residents and visitors on the island must brace themselves for another event of bad weather.

“A tropical wave located near the Cape Verde Islands is currently producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms,” the National Hurricane Center reported early Sunday morning. “Gradual development of this system is possible during the middle to latter part of the week as it moves westward to west-northwestward at speeds of 15 to 20 mph across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic.”

In response to the situation, Gov. Jenniffer González Colón has urged the public to remain vigilant regarding potential developments next weekend.

Erin, meanwhile, was expected to begin a gradual turn northward between today and Tuesday, remaining a major hurricane at least through midweek.

The governor announced at midday Sunday that for the time being, classes and work in the central government would continue as usual to begin the week.

It was announced later in the day that the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus, which was still without power on Sunday after going dark on Saturday evening, would begin classes on Wednesday.

Likewise, Dr. Angélica Varela Llavona -- chancellor of the UPR Río Piedras Campus -- announced that the administrative recess would be extended until Tuesday, Aug.19, and that classes will resume on Wednesday, Aug. 20 “as long as the electricity and cooling systems have been restored.”

“The Student Information System (SIE) remains open for registration, and the MiUPI portal for payments,” the chancellor added. “Students will have until Thursday, August 21st to make changes to their enrollment and until Friday to make payments.”

The governor said at the press conference that “the rest of the campuses and the rest of the schools will be operating tomorrow [Monday] as usual, obviously marking the start of the university academic year.”

“[If] there is further information today due to the rains that Puerto Rico still expects to face and the winds, we will keep the people of Puerto Rico informed,” González Colón said.

“For public servants, tomorrow will be work like any other day,” the governor added. “I know that many people are pumping water out of homes and dealing with leaks. This happens in all government offices, but today we should be overcoming the effects of the winds and rain brought by Hurricane Erin, which, thank God, did not have major impacts in Puerto Rico, and we hope that today will be no different.”

Energy Czar Josué Colón Ortiz noted meanwhile that the power outages were due to failures caused by Erin’s winds occurring along three transmission lines. There were also other situations due to trees falling on transmission lines or downed power lines.

“Our peak reached 160,000 customers out of service. We are currently close to 115,000. We managed to restore some 40,000 today,” Colón Ortiz said. “Of the challenges we have encountered, the biggest one is that the winds strongly impacted the transmission lines. That’s why we’re seeing a dramatic increase in the number of affected customers.

“It’s difficult to provide a time estimate on the overall response. We’ve already reached over 90 percent of service,” the energy czar added. “Therefore, in the last 10 percent, we’ll be able to progressively announce the areas that will be receiving service. One of the challenges, as the governor mentioned, is that the weather forecast continues to project heavy rain today, which will delay or interrupt our response capacity. We have approximately 750 personnel in the field working.”

Alejandro González, LUMA Energy’s transmission line manager, added: “It’s part of our rotation plan to ensure we have personnel on the streets at all times. During the night, our plan is to work as much as the weather, the hour and visibility allow.”