Puerto Rico power restoration workers honored at San Diego Padres game as EEI’s annual convention kicks off
SAN DIEGO – Nearly 200 lineworkers and support personnel from U.S. investor-owned electric companies were honored during a pregame ceremony on Monday at the San Diego Padres vs. Atlanta Braves baseball game here for their work to restore power to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria.
Approximately 60 investor-owned electric companies and public power utilities contributed crews, equipment and materials to the power restoration efforts in Puerto Rico after the Category 4 hurricane struck. In total, about 3,000 industry lineworkers and support personnel participated in the mission to restore electricity and rebuild the island’s devastated energy grid.
The crowd cheered as the restoration workers lined up on the baselines at Petco Park on Monday night.
“On the baselines are these heroic men and women who answered the call and volunteered to work in the most challenging conditions to help restore power to the people of Puerto Rico …” the announcer told the game’s attendees over the loudspeakers. “Please join the Padres in thanking these men and women for their hard work and dedication to bring the light back to Puerto Rico.”
The event helped kick off the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) 2018 Annual Convention, which runs from June 4-7 in San Diego.
San Diego Gas & Electric President Scott Drury rang the ceremonial mission bell during the pregame ceremony.
Carlos D. Torres, who served as Power Restoration Coordinator in Puerto Rico through an arrangement with EEI, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Torres recently retired from Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. where he held various leadership and operational positions throughout his 32-year career. Most recently at Con Edison, he served as vice president of Emergency Preparedness & Business Resiliency.
Torres will speak on Tuesday at an EEI convention panel titled “Historic Impacts, Historic Responses: Mutual Assistance in 2017,” which will cover the lessons learned from the restoration efforts of the past year.
Hurricane Maria, the 10th most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. It left all residents of the island without power and damaged approximately 80 percent of the island’s energy grid. Hurricane Maria caused more than 500 deaths and widespread destruction across the Caribbean.
Just weeks before Maria’s landfall, Hurricane Irma knocked power out for 1 million residents of Puerto Rico.
The extent of the damage, the rugged and mountainous terrain with limited or no road access in parts of Puerto Rico, and the island’s distance from the mainland created unique challenges for restoration workers. These conditions made it difficult to get materials to the island and distribute them to work sites across it.
For example, restoration workers from Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) didn’t receive their first overhead transformer until approximately six weeks after they arrived in Puerto Rico, Les Rainey, manager of construction and maintenance for APS, told Daily Energy Insider.
“These guys exercised their skill beyond belief by grabbing and splicing together wire that was in the jungle to heat people up, and they rebuilt transformers … because we didn’t have any, so they actually had to be extremely creative to get the lights back on,” Rainey said of the APS linemen who helped restore power to the island.
Gradually, Rainey said, materials began to arrive, and the lights began to come back on.
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors and industry mutual assistance crews worked together to restore power to the island.
On May 22, PREPA announced that power had been returned to more than 99 percent of its customers who can receive electricity. PREPA will now work to restore the remaining approximately 9,675 residents of Puerto Rico who are still without power, Torres said at the opening general session of the EEI convention.
