Thread by @deviIette

🧵THREAD: Before the US govt forced Puerto Rico’s electricity grid to be privatized (effective June 1st), American-Canadian corp LUMA was paid $1B to prepare for service & maintenance duty. 2 wks in, the grid’s unstableness is costing us our homes, food, appliances; EVERYTHING.🧵

As many of you know, Puerto Rico experienced a deadly hurricane in 2017 that knocked our power grid down, leaving us without power for a year. As a result, the utility became a target for neoliberal vultures & disaster capitalism to swoop in and take over. (See: Whitefish/Cobra)

Puerto Rico is under full authority of Congress & surviving under direct austerity measures imposed by the Fiscal Control Management Board. Despite resistance, FOMB overruled our Legislature & a contract to privatize the grid was implemented. Its now under LUMA ENERGY’s control

Luma (parent companies being ATCO & Quanta Services) has been studying our electrical infrastructure for a year as well as receiving millions of dollars in preparation for what would be their imminent transition into becoming a power monopoly.

Now here’s what the transition into privatization has brought Puerto Rico since LUMA took over:

- widespread power outages
- lack of access to website & customer service
- delayed or no response during infrastructure emergencies
- voltage instability causing serious damage

On June 10th, the heart of Puerto Rico’s power grid saw an explosion and caught fire. The incident caused nearly a million customers to lose electricity.

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1403121478795554816

On June 14, two homes in San Sebastián went up in flames after voltage instability provoked the transformer in their street to short circuit.

https://twitter.com/OscarTorresII/status/1404612274153832452

However, the problem with Luma didn’t start after the explosion on June 10th. People have been experiencing neglect for days prior to the incident. Here’s the most popular example. It took 5 days & public pressure to resolve this. Luma had to use 3rd party subcontractors to do it

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1401330630009364481

People are still experiencing issues in their neighborhoods with zero communications from LUMA. We can’t report outages. We don’t get status updates on areas who need service. To complicate it all, Luma is an English language operating corporation in Spanish language Puerto Rico

https://twitter.com/midnucas/status/1403067252736282630

It should be noted most of all that Puerto Ricans had no say in Luma taking over the electricity grid. The US government imposed the privatization of our utilities and we have been protesting for weeks.

https://twitter.com/deviIette/status/1399420467786702849

Protesting disaster capitalism in a US invaded colony has been met exactly how you would expect

https://twitter.com/deviIette/status/1402420484835266565

So what is next? Puerto Ricans demand the FOMB & Governor of Puerto Rico to cancel the contract that privatized our electricity grid. We demand the repeal of PROMESA, the Obama signed law that imposed the FOMB, which is destroying our livelihoods with severe austerity measures.

P.s. I will continue to update this thread for as long as the crisis continues.😉

Update: hospitals are losing valuable medical equipment due the instability of the grid in Puerto Rico. The forced privatization of our utility is costing us a lot more than just a handful of hours in the dark. 👇🏼

https://twitter.com/GuarioCandanga/status/1404892539010879496

Day 16 since LUMA took over Puerto Rico’s grid. Another massive outage after one of the main power plants (Costa Sur) misfired leaving 150k households without electricity. This is what privatization of public utilities looks like.

https://twitter.com/Motinsitepegas/status/1405343990027784194

June 16th event Update: Over 300k clients in Puerto Rico were left without electricity after tonight’s massive outage. Some units coming back online now… thousands still without power 😖😓

https://twitter.com/Motinsitepegas/status/1405350143268958218

Families in Puerto Rico are going through hardships because the privatization of our electricity only brought us outages and instability. These are the consequences of being held hostage as US colonial subjects. #FueraLUMA

https://twitter.com/midnucas/status/1405354697788071939

Continuing to update this thread with new information regarding how Puerto Rico’s energy crisis is accelerated through lack of transparency from the US imposed monopoly that took over the electricity grid.

1. LUMA refuses to provide information to Puerto Rico’s government.

https://twitter.com/deviiette/status/1407403133203095563

2. After being court ordered here, LUMA immediately removed the case to the Bankruptcy Court arguing that the information requirements were harassment and that did not allow them to do their work.

https://twitter.com/deviiette/status/1408420309154373632

3. The trick fails. “LUMA will have to answer the Puerto Rico’s legislature, bankruptcy judge dismisses request for help.” Luma has 24 hours to provide Puerto Rico’s government all requested information about their operations. noticel.com/tribunales/aho…

While US imposed monopoly Luma refuses to answer to Puerto Rico’s government, those on the island are experiencing unprecedented outages and voltage instability while LUMA’s customer service & crew brigades are inaccessible & unresponsive for days and sometimes even WEEKS.

https://twitter.com/deviiette/status/1408829454844104706

US imposed LUMA taking over Puerto Rico’s grid has only brought instability. People who are relying on generators to power their homes through extended outages have paid the price. This woman suffered severe burns from her generator during a 7-day outage
primerahora.com/noticias/puert…