At least 3,000 workers, 62,000 poles, 338 towers and 6,500 miles of wire will be needed to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electric grid, which a month after Hurricane Maria is at only 20% capacity. If everything goes right—and that’s a big if—most of the island’s 3.4 million people should have power by the end of May.
“It could take almost a year. I’d like to think we can get that done by the end of May, but there are going to be some people on Puerto Rico in very, very remote locations that are going to need [generator] power for a long, long time,” Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers, said in an Oct. 20 Pentagon briefing.