Javier Jiménez Pérez is a
Puerto Rican politician and the current mayor of
San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. Jiménez was affiliated with the
New Progressive Party (PNP) until 2023 and has served as mayor since 2005.
Education
Has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from the
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish (also referred to as Colegio and CAAM in allusion to its former name), is a public land-grant university in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. UPRM ...
.
Hurricane Maria
Hurricane Maria
Hurricane Maria was a deadly Category 5 hurricane that devastated the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico. It is regarded as the worst natural disaster in recorded history to affect ...
, on September 20, 2017, triggered numerous landslides in San Sebastián with the significant amount of rain that fell. The hurricane winds knocked the power out and the entire municipality was left in the dark, as was the rest or Puerto Rico.
Two weeks after the hurricane decimated the island, Jiménez noticed that help was not on the way. He decided that San Sebastián would not wait for the
AEE brigades to come. He assembled an
ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with '' a priori''.)
C ...
team of volunteers, some who were retired AEE electricians and their mandate was to get the electrical power back up and running, for the people of San Sebastián. They were able to restore 92% of the electricity within two months. A monument honoring the accomplishments of the ''Pepino Power Authority'', as they were quickly named, was erected in Plaza de la Identidad Pepiniana in
San Sebastián barrio-pueblo.
In early 2019, Jiménez received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the
National Hurricane Center (NHC) for mitigating the power failure.
References
Living people
Mayors of places in Puerto Rico
New Progressive Party (Puerto Rico) politicians
People from San Sebastián, Puerto Rico
Year of birth missing (living people)
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