Facing the destruction of almost its entire electrical grid after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico turned to a little-known Montana company to restore power rather than rely on a vast network of public power companies that usually comes to the rescue after disasters.

Overall, progress has been slow and uneven, stoking concerns about whether the unproven company is up to the task – and raising questions about the irregular way in which the territorial government awarded the contract. Ordinarily, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides money and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers oversees federally led recovery efforts after a disaster. Neither agency said it had a role in awarding or supervising the contract Puerto Rico awarded to restore its power lines.

Concerns eased Monday after FEMA and the Army Corps belatedly announced a $240 million contract with Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corporation to take the lead in restoring transmission and distribution lines. But head-scratching continues over the curious and opaque manner in which heavily indebted Puerto Rico eclipsed FEMA, the Army Corps and a national network of public utilities – brimming with line workers and bucket trucks – by turning over such an immense responsibility to a two-year-old private company with few resources of its own.

Typically, immediately after a disaster, the American Public Power Association – a public utilities trade group – emcees a conference call with its membership – 1,100 public utilities across the country – to get all the needed line workers and bucket trucks to the stricken area as soon as possible under what are called mutual aid agreements. For instance, the public power association facilitated the rapid deployment of many thousands of workers and their equipment to Texas and Florida after hurricanes Harvey and Irma struck.

But the Puerto Rico Electrical Power Authority (PREPA) took a different route after Maria’s 155 mph winds decimated the island’s already-failing electrical grid on Sept. 20, leaving 3.4 million residents, hospitals and businesses without electricity – possibly for months.

When the power association convened its conference shortly after Maria struck, PREPA told participants it wouldn’t need the network’s help because it had already contracted with Whitefish Energy Holdings LLC, a two-year-old consultancy, to spearhead the restoration efforts.

Whitefish, having to subcontract almost all of the work, had recruited and deployed 160 of the 1,000 workers needed to do the job – 16 percent – three weeks after Maria struck. By then, coincidentally, 16 percent of the power grid has been restored. Last week, the effort saw reversals when a large number of people whose power had been restored lost it again when a transmission line tripped.

“It’s a bit unclear why PREPA chose to go down that route, especially considering the offer was made to them for this mutual aid from the American Public Power Association that apparently wasn’t taken advantage of,” said Cathy Kunkel, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a non-profit that focuses on utility issues.

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/prpowerone.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/prpowerone.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/prpowerone.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > A woman left homeless by Hurricane Maria uses her cell phone at a school-turned-shelter that does not have electricity in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. The government says about 85 percent of the island remains without power. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

At a Glance Power restoration in Puerto Rico has been slow, raising concerns whether Whitefish – the company hired outside the usual channels for the job – is up to the task.

Why did Whitefish, a two-year old private company with few resources of its own, win the contract? FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are at a loss to explain.

It might have been “reasonable” to try to act quickly given the devastation caused by Maria, she said. However, she urged a federally appointed board overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances to obtain “a copy of that contract and do oversight on how that money was spent” to ensure that local ratepayers and U.S. taxpayers aren’t getting “ripped off.”

The slow progress and questions surrounding the contract led the public power association to confirm Monday that Puerto Rico bypassed its vast resources by awarding the contract to Whitefish.

“To date, PREPA has not requested aid from the Association; rather, it has engaged Whitefish to marshal the resources required to undertake power restoration,” the power authority stated. “Communications with PREPA and Whitefish have been difficult due to the telecommunications issues on the island.”

The contract was reportedly awarded through a phone call placed in the days immediately after Maria hit. A PREPA employee who happened to have a satellite phone and phone number for Whitefish made the call, according a story published by E&E News , an independent news organization that focuses on energy and environmental issues.

The employee had the phone number for Whitefish because PREPA had issued a request for proposals several days earlier to handle far-less-extensive damage caused by Hurricane Irma. It had grazed Puerto Rico two weeks earlier. Whitefish was one of only two companies to respond to the request, and so its phone number was handy after the power grid went dark because of Maria. But the timing left PREPA almost no time to vet the company.

The E&E article was based on an interview with Ricardo Ramos, PREPA’s CEO, who told the publication, “The day that the Corps of Engineers showed up and offered the assistance, we immediately accepted because we knew that financially it was a better model. The benefit is that I don’t have to spend the remaining dollars that are needed for recuperating the system.”

The Army Corps denied any role whatsoever in the awarding or execution of the Whitefish contract.

Andrew Techmanski, who founded Whitefish in May 2015, told Bloomberg News in Puerto Rico that while other power companies were “afraid of the question of how are we going to get paid, Whitefish Energy was the company that actually made the leap of faith and was able to get over here."

But PREPA spokesman Carlos Monroig Aceveda told weather.com that it had paid Whitefish “$2 million for the costs of mobilizing personnel and equipment,” adding that its contracts “are evaluated and awarded by the U.S. Corps of Engineers in coordination with FEMA, which disburses the money.”

His statement that the Corps was supervising didn’t square with what Catalina Carrasco of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told weather.com. She said the Corps “does not have any involvement with the contract between PREPA and Whitefish, adding in an email that the Corps “does not know how PREPA negotiated the contract. USACE does not know how PREPA is paying Whitefish. The contract is between PREPA and Whitefish. Corps of Engineers, did not negotiate, does not have ANY involvement between PREPA and Whitefish.” The emphasis was in the email.

William Douglass, a spokesperson for FEMA, said the agency’s databases do not show any dealings with Whitefish, although he added that FEMA gives money to agencies like PREPA and those agencies sometimes give some money to a third party like Whitefish without FEMA necessarily knowing.

Both FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers have distanced themselves from PREPA’s contract with Whitefish. But FEMA has given PREPA $97 million to restore the power lines and PREPA could have used some of that money to pay Whitefish. FEMA announced Monday it was approving an additional $128 million for PREPA.

PREPA itself is bankrupt, $9 billion in debt and currently generating no revenue. Even before hurricanes Irma and Maria struck, the island was experiencing frequent blackouts because of its aging power infrastructure. PREPA has existed for decades on financial vapors, resulting in critical maintenance being deferred and significant deterioration of its power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.

Whitefish’s Techmanski was working in Puerto Rico and couldn’t be reached for comment, according to spokesman Brandon Smulyan, who was himself unable to answer basic questions about the company because he has only been working with Whitefish under a contract for the past week. For instance, he couldn’t say how many employees Whitefish has. Public records list Andrew Techmanski as the president and Amanda Techmanski, whom public records identify as a registered nurse, as the manager. Andrew Techmanski has an extensive background in power-line work, according to his LinkedIn profile and other public records.

Smulyan said the young company is funded by two private equity firms – HBC Investments and Flat Creek Capital – both based in Dallas, Texas – and Brazil-based Comtrafo Transformers, which builds power transformers.

“To date,” Smulyan wrote in an Oct. 11 email, “Whitefish has visited, assessed and created operational bases in Cayey, Arecibo, Salinas, Manati, and Ponce and San Juan. Whitefish has repaired structures, conductors and lines in Salinas and has built access roads to the southern portion of the Salinas 230kv line.”

It also has contracted with JEA, a public utility serving the Jacksonville, Florida, area to send 41 line workers and service personnel to Puerto Rico. New York has sent a contingent of line workers, as well.

Separately, the Army Corps of Engineers has put in a purchase order for 50,000 utility poles and 6,500 miles of cable. It also awarded a $35.1 million contract to West Chester, Pennsylvania-based Weston Solutions to install a 50 megawatt generator in Puerto Rico’s Palo Seco Power Plant.

FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Energy all have personnel on the ground coordinating power restoration efforts.

Puerto Rico’s power infrastructure has been a concern for decades partly because it lies in the heart of a hurricane corridor. Previously, the territory’s power grid was ripped up by Hurricane Georges in 1998.

After Georges, the Clinton administration gave $133 million to PREPA to fix the power grid and begin putting lines underground. In 2000, the administration issued a glowing report saying the improvements had “empowered” Puerto Ricans to “withstand even the most unreliable weather.”

When Hurricane José struck Puerto Rico in 1999, the report said, the improvements left people, including PREPA officials, "confident" the island would not lose power. And it didn’t.

But 18 years later, Maria utterly destroyed the grid and it remains unclear when – and for how long – power will be restored.

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