It's certainly troubling that damage to a single power line can cause an island-wide blackout but there's good news this time around - Puerto Rico officials say it will only take "24 to 36" hours to restore power to the majority of affected citizens. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday after an excavator accidentally downed a transmission line, officials said, as the U.S. territory struggles to repair an increasingly unstable power grid nearly seven months after Hurricane Maria. “It’s like the first day of Maria all over again.”

Several large power outages have hit Puerto Rico in recent months, but Wednesday was the first time since the Category 4 storm struck on Sept. 20 that the U.S. territory has experienced a full island-wide blackout.
Puerto Rico experiences an island-wide blackout after an excavator accidentally downs a transmission line.