Puerto Rico's Electrical Grid Still 'Teetering' as 2018 Hurricane Season Begins (PHOTOS) | The Weather Channel
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"It's a highly fragile and vulnerable system."

ByNicole BonaccorsoJune 1, 2018


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A printed photo taken on Sept. 29, 2017 showing police lifting the coffin of officer Luis Angel Gonzalez Lorenzo, who was killed during the passage of Hurricane Maria when he tried to cross a river in his car, is shown at the same cemetery in Aguada, Puerto Rico, May 31, 2018. The local police force of Aguadilla and Aguada lacks about a dozen officers since the storm, due to resignations and retirements. The U.S. territory's bankruptcy has frozen promotions, salaries, new hires and some police academies have even closed. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)


Puerto Rico's commissioner of public safety Hector Pesquera said that Puerto Rico's electrical grid is "teetering" one day before the official beginning of the 2018 hurricane season.

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The eight-month, $3.8 billion federal effort to restore Puerto Rico's power after Hurricane Maria left the island in the dark and killed more than 4,600, according to a new report, has today left behind some 11,000 homes and businesses without power, Caribbean Business reported, as well as a faulty electrical grid, ready to collapse with the next storm.

(MORE: Maria's Actual Death Toll Grossly Underreported)

"It's a highly fragile and vulnerable system that really could suffer worse damage than it suffered with Maria in the face of another natural catastrophe," Puerto Rican Gov. Ricard Rossello told the AP.

Pesquera said that at the grid's current state, it may not take a storm as strong as Maria, which was a Category 4 when it hit the island, to cause another major blackout.

"Even if it's a [Category] 1, it is in such a state that I think we're going to lose power," Pesquera said, according to the AP. "I don't know for how long."

Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority CEO Walter Higgins predicted that it will take another six to eight weeks until electricity is completely restored in the rural areas of Puerto Rico.

As hurricane season begins on Friday, the head of the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Bruce Walker says that Puerto Rico will inevitably be hit by another storm. weather.com reported on Thursday that the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season is expected to have a near-average number of hurricanes and tropical storms, according to the Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project.

MORE FROM WEATHER.COM: Hurricane Maria's Destruction