When the lights go out on an entire island, the way they did in Puerto Rico this week,

Gloria Gonzales is someone you want to call.

She's an energy reporter over at Politico.

She knows her way around a power grid.

She also knows a little something about Puerto Rico.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York if you can tell from the accent, but my parents were

both born on the island.

So it wasn't until late last night where all of my family members and friends on the

island were accounted for.

You must have been frantic.

It's interesting because you almost, I hate to say this, but you're almost, I don't panic

because I'm kind of used to this happening, unfortunately.

Gloria is used to this happening because Puerto Rico's power grid has been straining under

its own weight for years.

Hurricane Maria dealt a knockout punch, and it's never really recovered.

While this week's outage is especially severe, but let's go out frequently enough that

now Gloria's whole family knows the drill.

After they figure out which relative has a couple of working outlets, everyone heads over

to their place, waits the crisis out.

As I looked at reports of flooding and mudslides looked at aerial footage of soaked villages.

It was pretty easy to think about this latest power crisis as a trick of Mother Nature.

But Gloria sees it differently.

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