Puerto Rico’s power crisis

Today, Explained

Vox

News, Daily News, Politics

4.3 • 10.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Days after Ian, most Floridians now have their power back. Weeks after Fiona, more than 100,000 Puerto Rican households and businesses are still coping with blackouts and an outdated grid. The Washington Post’s Arelis Hernández explains. This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hurricane Ian hit Florida and then swept along the Atlantic States last week and
0:05.0	this weekend. Millions of people lost power but for the most part the
0:09.2	electricity was pretty quickly restored. Now consider another storm. Hurricane
0:14.4	Fiona hit Puerto Rico in mid-September. Hurricane Fiona slams into Puerto Rico
0:19.5	knocking out power to the entire island. Their electricity is not back on.
0:24.5	Tens of thousands are still without power in Puerto Rico as well it continues
0:28.1	to recover from Hurricane Fiona's hit two weeks ago. As Fiona bore down some
0:32.4	people still didn't have reliable electricity after the last major hurricane
0:36.9	there. Hurricane Maria in 2017. It sometimes seems like the only thing Puerto
0:41.4	Rico's power grid does with any reliability is draw the iron of Puerto Ricans.
0:47.2	Why is Puerto Rico's power grid so vulnerable? Coming up on today explained.
1:01.1	Support for today's show comes from Slack. A digital HQ in Slack brings your
1:06.7	teams partners and tools together in one space. Slack helps companies stay
1:11.2	flexible, accelerate projects and keep teams aligned so work just works.
1:16.8	How exactly? Organized projects in channels work across time zones with
1:22.1	huddles and clips and even streamline partnerships with Slack connect.
1:26.0	However you work, Slack is the flexible digital HQ for organized and
1:31.2	efficient teams no matter where they're logging in from. Get started at Slack.com
1:36.4	slash DHQ Slack where the future works.
1:51.4	It's today explained. I'm the well king. Our lease Hernandez is a reporter for
1:56.2	the Washington Post and in 2017 she was in Puerto Rico covering what happened
2:01.6	there after Hurricane Maria on that trip. She met a woman Maria Ortiz Biduet. She
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.