Puerto Rico officials say power back soon for most

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (WOFL FOX 35) - Puerto Rico's governor has made a bold prediction that power will be completely restored to most of the island by next month. The U.S. territory has been struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria and years of deteriorating infrastructure.

Many Puerto Ricans have been without electricity for more than five months, the longest blackout in U.S. history.  More than 400,000 power customers remain in the dark after the Category 4 storm destroyed two-thirds of the island's power distribution system and caused up to an estimated $94 billion in damage.

The blast also illustrated the challenges of restoring a power grid that was already crumbling before it was devastated by the storm.

In many cases, power workers are repairing equipment that should have long been replaced but remained online due to the power authority's long financial crisis.

The state-owned power company is worth roughly $4 billion, carries $9 billion in debt and has long been criticized for political patronage and inefficiency. It also has suffered frequent blackouts, including an island-wide outage in September 2016.

Puerto Rico's governor announced last month that he plans to privatize the company, which relies on infrastructure nearly three times older than the industry average. It would be the largest restructuring of a public entity in U.S. history.

Information taken from the Associated Press.