Hurricane Maria landed half a decade ago. The storm thrashed the lesser antilles, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Although it didn’t suffer the same degree of physical damage as some countries, the fallout on Puerto Rico was especially bad because of the island’s large urban populations and old, cumbersome grid system. Following landfall, all 3.4 million residents were left without power and power wasn’t fully restored until more than a year later. There was an estimated 100 billion in damages and thousands died. The destruction, and shameful recovery effort, sent many Puerto Ricans packing for the mainland.
When I think back to the media coverage surrounding the disaster, I remember three angles that most stories fit into. First, that this was just a little taste of our future on a warmer planet. Ultimately nothing could be done to undue, mitigate, or even adapt to the new hostile climate. Puerto Ricans were early victims of climate change, but we all shared the same fate. Then there were the articles about the administrative negligence that left Puerto Rico so unprepared for the event, and subsequently doomed the island to a painfully slow recovery. On the surface, corrupt Puerto Rican officials were to blame, but a closer look revealed the root cause: American imperialism. Finally, there was the optimist’s take. The hurricane was a tragedy, but tech ingenuity and a new found urgency would keep a similar disaster from happening again.
In particular, much attention was paid to the territory’s grid renovation efforts. Media outlets highlighted Tesla’s micro-grid and solar initiatives, which were received by Puerto Rico’s governor with open arms. They were feel good stories about getting the power back on in old folks homes, Elon Musk’s genius and how such ingenuity could mitigate the consequences of climate change on PR and in the rest of the world.
Well, five years have passed, and it seems the pessimists might have been right. According to reports, yesterday morning, most of the island’s inhabitants woke up without power. The culprit: Hurricane Fiona, only a category 2 storm when it made landfall on Puerto Rico.
The governor has said that power should be returned in a matter of days, but he’s also admitted many of the downed lines have yet to be checked. Given the island’s recent history, it would be credulous to take the governor’s word for it.
So what happened to all the tesla solar and the microgrids that were supposed to mitigate prolonged outages while also pushing the island towards 100% renewables? The Tesla solar initiative was dead as early as 2018, as this article in the Huffington Post made clear:
“At one water treatment facility, the battery sat dormant and, during HuffPost’s visit to the site in late February, the field of solar panels was overgrown with weeds and brush. Several panels bore the shattered imprints of horse hooves, a predictable problem on an island with one wild horse for every two humans.”
The solution to Puerto Rico’s grid problems is the same as for most parts of the world embattled by increasingly predictable unpredictable weather: Bury the power lines. Sure, it’s absorbently expensive, but so are all these disasters. Keeping transmission systems above ground is beginning to look like a false economy in places like Puerto Rico and California.
Rich countries in western Europe put their lines underground a long time ago, so when will America, the richest country in the world, do the same?