Hurricane Maria: The Storm That Caused America's Longest Blackout

When Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017, it didn't just damage the island's power grid, it destroyed it almost entirely. All 3.4 million residents lost electricity in a single morning, and what followed became the longest blackout in United States history, stretching nearly a full year before power was restored to every customer on the island.

A Grid That Was Already Fragile

Puerto Rico's power system was vulnerable long before Maria arrived. The island's public power authority, PREPA, was already deeply in debt and had lost roughly 30% of its workforce in the years leading up to the storm. The average power plant on the island was 44 years old, and outdated infrastructure, poor maintenance, and weak safety systems had been the subject of local news coverage for years before Maria hit.

Then came the timing. Maria struck just two weeks after Hurricane Irma had already grazed the island, leaving roughly 80,000 customers without power and straining emergency resources before Maria even arrived. Puerto Rico's main FEMA supply warehouse, the territory's primary emergency stockpile, had already sent most of its water and tarps to the U.S. Virgin Islands after Irma. There was little room for the system, or the island's response capacity, to absorb a second direct hit.