Puerto Rico Could Face Months-Long Blackouts Due to Irma

The director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority told a local radio station that storm damage could leave some areas in Puerto Rico without electricity for four to six months as a result of Hurricane Irma hitting the island. But “some areas will have power (back) in less than a week,” he told Notiuno 630 AM.

Hurricane Irma -- one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic -- could hit parts of the Virgin Islands and then pass just north of Puerto Rico on Wednesday afternoon and night. Irma is a Category 5 storm, which means sustained winds of greater than 157 mph. 

According to an Associated Press report, people in Puerto Rico are braced for blackouts PREPA's infrastructure has deteriorated greatly during a decade-long recession, and Puerto Ricans experienced an island-wide outage last year.

PREPA has been officially in crisis since 2014, according to a report from Quartz, when it would have declared bankruptcy for $9 billion in debt but was unable to do so under the US Code’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy provisions. Ramos took over direction of PREPA in March and is facing an uphill battle.