Puerto Rican cities hit with water rationing measures during record drought

xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoBryan Perez hauls a 20-litre (five-gallon) water jug to his apartment in the Villa Kennedy public housing complex in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 10, 2026 [Danica Coto/AP]By Al Jazeera Staff and APPublished On 5 Aug 20265 Aug 2026Puerto Rico has announced it will implement water rationing measures in San Juan and other major cities as a drought grips the United States territory with no relief in sight.

More than 180,000 Puerto Ricans will be without water for 48 hours at a time on a rotating basis starting Friday.

More than 180,000 Puerto Ricans will be without water for 48 hours at a time on a rotating basis starting Friday, as Puerto Rico scrambles to find a solution to the deepening crisis amid continuing extreme heat warnings.

“This situation is out of our hands,” Governor Jenniffer Gonzalez said late Tuesday as she blamed weather conditions. “Nothing prevents this from worsening.”

She said she did not know how long the rationing measures will remain in place. Meteorologists have warned dry conditions will likely persist until September.

July was the driest month on record for San Juan in more than 120 years and the second-hottest July for the capital. Almost 25 percent of Puerto Rico is experiencing a severe drought and another 36 percent is under a moderate drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.

Experts have predicted a milder 2026 hurricane season, with dry conditions persisting until at least September, said Maria Novoa Garcia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Juan.

Rainfall in the next two to three weeks will be at least 50 percent below average, she added.

“We are seeing that El Nino continues to get stronger,” she said, referencing a natural warming cycle.

The drought is worsening, but thousands of Puerto Ricans had already been experiencing water shortages up to a year before for unknown reasons.

Among them is 61-year-old community leader Marcia Soler Paris. She said Wednesday that the rationing measures don’t really mean much because her neighbourhood had already been experiencing severe water shortages for months.

“It’s chaos,” she said, questioning how Puerto Ricans are supposed to prepare for rationing when they don’t have water now. “It’s truly pitiful.”

She worries most about bedridden and older people who are unable to haul heavy water buckets to their homes and apartments.

Luis Gonzalez Delgado, president of Puerto Rico’s water and sewer system, said large trucks would distribute potable water, with priority given to hospitals and residences for older people.

The rationing will extend to certain neighbourhoods in the cities of Carolina, Juncos, Gurabo, Trujillo Alto, Canovanas and Loiza.

The lack of water, unrelated to the drought, prompted San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero to sue the island’s Water and Sewer Authority in late May, with the governor acknowledging the agency’s infrastructure has lacked investment and maintenance for decades.

Puerto Rico previously implemented rationing measures in 2020 and in 2015, when some 400,000 utility customers received water only every third day.

The United Nations weather agency’s update, released in late July, said that the periodic climate phenomenon threatens to heighten the risk of heatwaves, drought and flooding around the globe. The report comes as countries in Africa and Europe are battling massive wildfires, while the monsoon season has caused havoc across South Asia.