Tropical Storm Ernesto Drenches Puerto Rico on Path North

About 375,000 homes and businesses were in the dark in Puerto Rico after Tropical Storm Ernesto brushed past early Wednesday, pounding the island with torrential rain and winds. The storm is likely to become a hurricane in the coming hours as it heads north toward Bermuda.

Ernesto was about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north-northwest of San Juan by 5 a.m. local time, the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. About 25% of local utility Luma Energy’s almost 1.5 million customers were without service at 7:20 a.m. local time.

Maximum sustained winds were about 70 miles per hour on Wednesday, just shy of a Category 1 hurricane. It could become a major hurricane — Category 3 or higher — in the coming days, the NHC said.

Ernesto — the Atlantic’s fifth named storm of 2024 — is set to drop as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain in parts of the island, according to the center. Coastal flooding is possible in areas including eastern Puerto Rico and in the neighboring US Virgin Islands.

President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration on Tuesday evening local time, allowing federal assistance to supplement local efforts in the US commonwealth.

Puerto Rico has endured a series of powerful storms in recent years that have repeatedly battered its fragile power grid and disrupted its economy. Hurricane Maria in 2017 killed more than 2,900 people, caused about $90 billion in damage and left many residents without electricity for months. Hurricane Fiona triggered another island-wide blackout in 2022.

The commonwealth’s 3.2 million residents suffer chronic outages even during calm weather because of the power grid’s poor condition. They also pay some of the highest electricity rates in the US. Luma Energy, a US-Canadian consortium, manages the grid and is tasked with modernizing and strengthening the system’s infrastructure, but progress has been slow.

In advance of the storm, Luma on Monday activated its emergency operations centers, mobilized more than 1,100 utility workers and began coordinating with mayors across the island and local and federal partners, Juan Saca, Luma’s chief executive officer, said in a press release.