“I’ve always said that government should provide the essentials: electricity and a health system,” said Mr. Rivera, 54. And residents have come to distrust the island’s electrical grid, which started faltering hours before the bluster of Irma grazed Puerto Rico. The electrical workers’ union fears that the government purposely let Prepa deteriorate over time to justify privatizing it. Now we have 3,500,” said Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, president of the Irrigation and Electrical Workers Union, the largest union representing Prepa workers. By Saturday night, Mr. Monroig said, Prepa had restored electricity to almost 887,000 of the 1.2 million customers affected by the shutdown.

Source: New York Times September 10, 2017 04:52 UTC