I arrived in Puerto Rico on November 15. My timing was propitious – power had been restored to our building three days before. Our apartment suffered some minor damage. Water seeped in from the hallway and a bit of flooring needs to be replaced. Our balcony awning was destroyed, as was the exterior light fixture on the balcony. No surprise there – wind gusts greater than 125 mph were measured not far from here.

While I was fortunate, power had not been restored in many parts of the city, including major parts of Old San Juan. Our friend Vionette, who stayed there during and after the storm, had no power even a week after my arrival. That was soon to change. She told me there were utility trucks swarming over Old San Juan, from ConEd, the power utility in New York City. One crew worked on her side street for three days. She could not remember their names so she called one of them Brooklyn. She had power back before Thanksgiving.

ConEd crews in Old San Juan, November 2017. Note the utility poles on the roofs, and the narrow streets and sidewalks.

I’m not sure what program or authority caused ConEd to be here, but they came in force, and they were certainly welcome. There must have been 50 utility trucks and associated support vehicles. They were shipped here by freighter; their crews flew in a few days later to marry up with their equipment and start to work. The crews were on the streets starting on Veteran’s Day. They usually, by my sporadic observation, worked independently, although I did notice a very few instances of cooperation between ConEd and the PREPA, the Puerto Rican utility.

I talked to several of the ConEd people. They found the work gratifying and challenging, especially in Old San Juan. There, the electrical system had to be imposed on a city four centuries old. Narrow streets and sidewalks meant distribution poles were mounted on roof tops and hard to access. Several of them told me the system, while workable, had clearly not been upgraded in a while, and routine maintenance had sometimes been neglected.

La Perla, a poor community situated between the walls of Old San Juan and the Atlantic Ocean.

One team of five or six trucks was assigned to La Perla, a poor neighborhood outside the city walls on the north side of Old San Juan, nestled between the city walls and the Atlantic Ocean. The crews (these crews were from Rockland and Orange Counties and they were technically a subsidiary of ConEd) had to dismantle some of their equipment to gain access to the streets there, as the only road in goes through an old gate in the wall. After reassembling their trucks, it took them five days to ‘knock it back together’ as one of them said. One guy bought a bottle of water from a woman in a convenience store there. She broke down in tears. The residents threw a party for the workers as they were leaving. I’m not sure what kind of party exactly, but the ConEd guys were impressed.

Utility crews at work in the Puerta de Tiera section of San Juan, as seen from our balcony. Four trucks worked for three full days along a short stretch of the street.

After finishing their work in Old San Juan, the crews moved steadily eastward, into Puerta de Tierra, Condado, Santurce, Miramar, Ocean Park, Hato Rey. One guy, working in Condado, told me they were frustrated because, while they could knot things back together and restore power, they did not have the material, like utility poles and transformers, to replace things that needed replacement. One friend of mine, in Hato Rey, had his power restored on November 30, another woman I know who lives there was still waiting as of December 4. She did say utility trucks were in her neighborhood and she hoped to have power back that evening or the next day.

I will say the crews are putting in the time.  Every morning from my balcony I see convoys, five of six trucks at a time, leaving from their staging area in Old San Juan and headed east. The start about 6 30 every morning, and usually return in the early evening, just after sunset. One crew told me they expected ConED, and perhaps other utilities, to be here until mid-January. The crews apparently work in five week rotations, so the first crews should be going home soon, to be replaced by new crews coming in.

There are other signs that things are returning to what might be a new normal. According to the paper (we subscribe to the San Juan Star, a daily published in English) the other day, 93% of the island’s public schools are back in session. Thousands of utility poles, 35, 50 and 70 feet in length, are supposed to start arriving in the Port of San Juan, starting today. Contracts have been let around the island for debris removal. Cruise ships are again making port calls; there are three cruise ships in port as I write this. We went to a movie yesterday, and dinner afterwards. The restaurant (Pizza e Barre in Miramar, for those who might know it) was doing a good early evening  business.

But there are, and will continue to be nagging questions about the recovery effort. Most of the people I have talked to think the contract between PREPA and Whitefish, out of Montana, was a disaster. The hospital ship USNS Hope just left, and the feeling is she was underutilized, mostly because of lack of communication and bureaucratic red tape.

One anecdote, I think, captures some of this frustration. A small town somewhere in the middle of the island banded together within a week after the storm and cleaned the school building. They restarted their school, with volunteer teachers and cooks, to provide their children with an education and a good lunch. The government closed it down. They said the town had to wait until building inspectors deemed the building safe.

Now, I’m a big fan of safe buildings. I understand the need for inspections. But this seems a case where the government, rather than quashing this effort, could have expedited the inspection, and worked with the community.

Maybe the story is apocryphal, but it rings true. And I have not yet seen any utility poles coming into port.