Water rationing begins in Puerto Rico amid drought crisis: "It's brutal"

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of residents across Puerto Rico's capital and nearby areas were confronted with the harsh reality of water rationing. This drastic measure was implemented in response to an ongoing drought, compounded by infrastructure challenges plaguing the island's water supply system. Gloriany Baba, a San Juan resident, expressed the gravity of the situation, describing it as "brutal."

The rationing affects over 180,000 customer accounts, encompassing both households and businesses in San Juan and six other municipalities.

Residents were observed collecting water in jugs and buckets in anticipation of the rationing, which mandates alternating periods without water for at least 48 hours for two distinct groups of customers. The government has not provided a timeline for the cessation of the rationing and has cautioned that the outages might be prolonged to 72 hours.

In San Juan, July marked the driest month in more than a century, and the second hottest on record. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, approximately 36% of Puerto Rico is experiencing severe drought, while an additional 32% is grappling with moderate drought conditions.

Ada Monzon, chief meteorologist at local station WAPA-TV, stated that the drought cannot be resolved by a single tropical system; it would require multiple such events, coupled with winter precipitation, to alleviate the crisis. The water authority notes that roughly 65% of the water it generates is lost or unbilled, with a substantial portion attributed to leaks and aging infrastructure.

Puerto Rico's governor, Jenniffer González, acknowledges years of neglect but attributes the current predicament primarily to weather factors.

Communities in San Juan have documented at least 118 days in 2026 with repeated water outages prior to the rationing. Service has been unreliable, experiencing full or multiple-day interruptions. Low-income residents have had to resort to purchasing bottled water, while the elderly have sought assistance from neighbors and family members to transport water to their homes. This situation echoes earlier rationing efforts in 2020 and 2015, when around 400,000 utility customers were provided with water every third day.