Puerto Rico: Lack of electricity threatens telephone and internet services

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

On October 18, 2017, the Puerto Rican Telecommunications Alliance warned the lack of utility power in the main telecommunications centers (Metro office park, Caparra and San Patricio) may not be sustainable soon. Although the telecommunication facilities are using generators, they are not intended for long-term, continuous use. The generators will need maintenance and likely experience unscheduled failures the longer they're
used.

While APT is avoiding identifying specific facilities or operators, this is the general area where several submarine cable operators and telecommunication providers interconnect.

https://www.elnuevodia.com/negocios/empresas/nota/faltadeelectricidadponeenpeligroserviciosdetelefoniaeinternet-2367092/

2

Permanent duty diesel generators exist. Many northern communities in
Canada run on them as their 7/24 power source.

It *shouldn't* have taken long after Maria for locals to know how much
damage there had been to electrical grid and that if it's gonna take
months to fix, you're gonna need constant duty generators.

What isn't clear to me is whether everything still depends on FEMA/army
help, or whether business is able to function autonomously and get their
own generators without the army confiscating them to be delieved to a
hospital instead.

And if you're a telco who is deprived of revenues because almost all
your customers are without power, do you spend your own money and effort
to try to get a permanent duty diesel generator to maintain your central
office, or do you wait for government to install one for you ?

It is one thing to be benevolent and wanting to have your network
backbone up, but financial realities of the cost of running a business
without revenues will eventually hit you when the disaster lasts for
months instead of days.

3

It does make you wonder about the electrical infrastructure of the island,
and how much work is being done to repair it. With the Texas and Florida
hurricanes you saw fleets of electrical service vehicles (boom trucks and
the like) from other power companies with joint agreements waiting to
deploy into the disaster area as soon as it was safe to do so.

With PR.... well, it's not like you can drive to the island, much less
(apparently) around on it. Getting those vehicles and people in, assuming
joint agreements with off island power companies existed in the first
place, would be a case of scheduling and determining priorities.

And for those crying that the US Federal Gov't ought to do it - where do
you think they're going to find the people? It's not like they have armies
of infrastructure level electricians just sitting around playing cards
until needed for an emergency - these are the sort of people who, by and
large, are already working at jobs - where they are needed as well.

When it comes to infrastructure it seems like PR has been knocked back to
the "tools to make tools" stage - they need to build the infrastructure to
rebuild their infrastructure, which was apparently in no great shape to
begin with.

4

Well, the problem as I understand it is that the infrastructure was
not all that great to begin with. Much of it was damaged in the first
storm and when this second one came through, what remained basically
disappeared. That's why they say that the only thing you can do is
start from the middle and slowly extend the tentacles outward. You're
almost building the territory from scratch. Assuming that the reports
of theft, misapproproation, and other nefarious occurences are
correct, that certainly does not help matters.

Still, this situation ought to make everyone sit up and think about
their own DR capability.

5

Being hit with a Cat 5 hurricane/cyclone in a caribeean island that
hasn't been a direct hit from severe storms in decades will cause
extensive damage no matter what state its infrastructure was in before.

Vegetation that does not regular storms to "prune" it will grow to a
point where it will cause major damage when a big storm hits.

And a caribbean island who has never been "rich" will not have had, as a
priority, increasing building codes to widthstand hurricanes. Building
codes get updated after a big devastating hurricane, whether it is for
Darwin in 1974 (Tracy) or ones like Andrew in Florida.

It's easy for a state the size of Texas to send all of its electrical
utility trucks to the Houson area to repair damage. But they too would
be stretched thin if all of Texas had been leveled.

If buildings were not built to widthstand a 5 or a 4, then the building
itself becomes destructor of infrastructure as its materials become high
speed projectiles throuwn at other buildings and especially
teleohone/electrical lines.

I went through a category 4 (Olivia, Australia 1996). While the town and
building I was in (Karatha) were built to new standards and had little
damage, I witnessed the power of it, and I can totally understand Puerto
Rico being destroyed.

I know a politician with tendancy to skew facts points to Puerto Rico
having had terrible infrastructure. But consider that Darwin, a "rich"
town" was wiped out in 1974 by Tracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B89wBGydSvs

Tracy was a 4. Maria was a 5.
(note the alert sound at start of video still sends shivers down my
spine because it was the same as I heard before Olivia hit).

The population was evacuated by 747s because there was nothing there to
support it. The road link to is (Stuart Highway) is so long that Darwin
is tantamount to an island. (especially since Stuart wasn't fully paved
back then).

Also note: in Florida, the utilities positioned all their equipment in
safe places so it could survive storm and be deployed when needed. But
what happens when there is no safe place, or the safe places become
isolated because roads become impassable?

It is one thing when a state has some areas with high level of
destruction. But when the whole state is destroyed, it is a truly
different situation because its economy is also destroyed. Florida
Power still has plenty of revenues from undamaged areas to pay for the
repairs in damaged areas. The Utility in Puerto Rico doesn't. (and if it
was finacially weak before, it makes things worse).

When you see other states' utilities coming to help in a highly damaged
area, don't think for a minute they do this for free. The local utility
stll gets a bill at the end of the day for the work done. If the Puerto
Rico company has no cash to pay, don't exopect other utilities to send
crews.

6

This thread is mostly full of idle speculation, is at the least insensitive
and verges on offensive.

If you have operational information about Puerto Rico (see Sean Donelan's
posts rather than these responses), please go ahead. If you would like to
allocate blame, please go somewhere else to do it. The Internet is full of
people who are blaming Puerto Rico for getting hit by a hurricane. I don't
need it here.

Thanks,

T
(From Humacao)

Well, the problem as I understand it is that the infrastructure was
not all that great to begin with. Much of it was damaged in the first
storm and when this second one came through, what remained basically
disappeared.

Being hit with a Cat 5 hurricane/cyclone in a caribeean island that
hasn't been a direct hit from severe storms in decades will cause
extensive damage no matter what state its infrastructure was in before.

Vegetation that does not regular storms to "prune" it will grow to a
point where it will cause major damage when a big storm hits.

And a caribbean island who has never been "rich" will not have had, as a
priority, increasing building codes to widthstand hurricanes. Building
codes get updated after a big devastating hurricane, whether it is for
Darwin in 1974 (Tracy) or ones like Andrew in Florida.

It's easy for a state the size of Texas to send all of its electrical
utility trucks to the Houson area to repair damage. But they too would
be stretched thin if all of Texas had been leveled.

If buildings were not built to widthstand a 5 or a 4, then the building
itself becomes destructor of infrastructure as its materials become high
speed projectiles throuwn at other buildings and especially
teleohone/electrical lines.

I went through a category 4 (Olivia, Australia 1996). While the town and
building I was in (Karatha) were built to new standards and had little
damage, I witnessed the power of it, and I can totally understand Puerto
Rico being destroyed.

I know a politician with tendancy to skew facts points to Puerto Rico
having had terrible infrastructure. But consider that Darwin, a "rich"
town" was wiped out in 1974 by Tracy.

Tracy was a 4. Maria was a 5.
(note the alert sound at start of video still sends shivers down my
spine because it was the same as I heard before Olivia hit).

The population was evacuated by 747s because there was nothing there to
support it. The road link to is (Stuart Highway) is so long that Darwin
is tantamount to an island. (especially since Stuart wasn't fully paved
back then).

Also note: in Florida, the utilities positioned all their equipment in
safe places so it could survive storm and be deployed when needed. But
what happens when there is no safe place, or the safe places become
isolated because roads become impassable?

It is one thing when a state has some areas with high level of
destruction. But when the whole state is destroyed, it is a truly
different situation because its economy is also destroyed. Florida
Power still has plenty of revenues from undamaged areas to pay for the
repairs in damaged areas. The Utility in Puerto Rico doesn't. (and if it
was finacially weak before, it makes things worse).

When you see other states' utilities coming to help in a highly damaged
area, don't think for a minute they do this for free. The local utility
stll gets a bill at the end of the day for the work done. If the Puerto
Rico company has no cash to pay, don't exopect other utilities to send
crews.

7

Here's a fact, the next ICANN meeting in March is still a go in San Juan PR. Hopefully bringing 2000 people will have a positive impact on the local economy.

8

Its too early for an after-action review. Nevertheless, this report by the Miami Herald is the best summary to date of the aftermath in Puerto Rico.
Its solid journalism, covers the wide-span of the destruction, and gives credit and blame based on documented evidence.

Its longer than a typical newspaper article. Nevertheless, worth the read.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article179744081.html

‘Days were lost’: Why Puerto Rico is still suffering a month after Hurricane Maria
BY PATRICIA MAZZEI AND OMAYA SOSA PASCUAL
pmazzei@miamiherald.com
Center for Investigative Journalism
OCTOBER 19, 2017 2:17 PM

Sosa Pascual reports for Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI), which worked jointly with the Miami Herald on this report. McClatchy correspondent Tim Johnson contributed from Utuado, Puerto Rico.