Keeping the Lights On

摘要

In September 2017, two hurricanes struck the US island of Puerto Rico, crippling its electric power grid. Because Puerto Rico is a major manufacturing site for medical supplies, the nation's hospitals soon developed acute shortages of the intravenous bags used to administer medicines. By early 2018 the Food and Drug Administration was cautiously optimistic that the shortages would be alleviated. Even so, at that point more than half of the people in Puerto Rico still had no electricity. The role of electricity in modern life is one we take for granted-until the power goes out, with repercussions distant as well as local.