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- Puerto Rico declares emergency and activates National Guard over water outages</p>
<p>July 31, 2025 at 4:46 AM</p>
<p>FILE - Jenniffer Gonzalez speaks after she was sworn in as governor outside the Capitol in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Jan. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo, File) ()</p>
<p>SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico's governor declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and activated the National Guard after thousands of homes were left without water.</p>
<p>Nearly 180,000 customers were affected at the peak of the outage late last week. As of Wednesday, nearly 3,000 customers were still without water, including nearly a dozen hotels, according to Gov. Jenniffer González.</p>
<p>The problem has angered many on the island of 3.2 million people, especially because the state water and sewer authority has declined to name the company responsible for damaging a main water line while repairing a road last week.</p>
<p>Municipal officials have set up water distribution points and have gone home-to-home to distribute drinking water, with the National Guard now expected to help with those duties.</p>
<p>"As long as I have 11 hotels without water and residents without service, of course we have an emergency," González said.</p>
<p>The governor also named a special coordinator charged with stabilizing the water system, investigating the water and sewer authority and determining how the incident occurred. He is expected to issue a report in the next 10 days.</p>
<p>González said that the water and sewer authority's executive director, who has come under fire, would remain in that position.</p>
<p>Before the widespread incident occurred, dozens of communities across Puerto Rico had long experienced issues with water supply.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america</p>
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