LUMA Crews Respond to Tropical Storm Franklin

Tropical Storm Franklin brought heavy rains to Puerto Rico about a week ago after making landfall in the Dominican Republic and impacting Haiti.

Before the storm even rolled into its service territory, LUMA  initiated its emergency response plan. The utility prepared resources and personnel and partially activated its LUMA Emergency Operations Center (LEOC) to manage operations, before, during and in response to the storm.

The Category 2 storm resulted in heavy rainfall throughout the island. As part of its emergency response planning, LUMA encouraged customers to prepare for potential storm impacts and possible power outages.

Following the tropical storm, LUMA responded to impacts from Tropical Storm Franklin and had additional resources and personnel ready to be mobilized as part of its Emergency Response Plan. To coordinate its emergency response efforts, the LUMA Emergency Operations Center (LEOC) remained partially activated, with all Regional Operations Command Centers (ROCCs) located throughout the island active.

As of Aug. 21, the National Weather Service forecast showed that Tropical Storm Franklin was moving north through the Caribbean and would continue to cause rain, thunderstorms and flooding risks across Puerto Rico.

“Since Sunday, the more than 4,000 men and women of LUMA have been responding to outages and repairing damage caused by Tropical Storm Franklin as quickly and safely as possible," says Juan Saca, LUMA president and chief executive officer. "We continue to coordinate with relevant authorities and GeneraPR to ensure a coordinated response to the storm. We have also mobilized our communications assets and are doing everything possible to support and keep our customers informed of outages and response efforts." 

LUMA’s response and restoration efforts include the following actions:

• Responded to 160+ outage events
• Restored service to more than 20,500 customers. 
• Answered more than 2,500 customer calls, with an average answer time of less than one minute. 
• Coordinated emergency response efforts with key stakeholders and agency partners including PREMB, FEMA, ESF-12, P3A and the PREB. 
• Worked closely with generation operators to ensure sufficient generation resources. 

The LUMA team members involved in the initial phase of response included: 

• More than 650 team members actively working to resolve service interruptions
• 244 team members across 80 crews dedicated to clearing vegetation
• 42 team members activated in the LEOC monitoring the storm’s impact on Puerto Rico