BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – POWER outages are commonplace in St. Kitts, however, the sporadic – and in some instances – prolonged outages which occurred over the weekend have left electricity consumers scratching their heads about the possible cause(s). The St. Kitts Electricity Company Ltd (SKLEC) has sought to explain the cause of the outages and inform consumers of actions taken to rectify the problems.
The outages took place on Sunday (Sept 11) and Monday (Sept. 12) with certain sections of the island being out of power for a combined approximate of 13 hours.
According to the press release issued by disseminateit.com on behalf of SKLEC, approximately four island-wide outages occurred over the weekend.
The Sunday outages, according to the release, were caused by a pole transformer in Sandy Point which “faulted” and the short-circuiting of the Bayfords feeder conductor. The latter was owing to “interference of tree branches” which was caused by the inclement weather.
The first of the two occurred at 12:10 p.m., and power was restored within an hour’s time after the faulted pole transformer was replaced. The other occurred at about 1:05 p.m. with electricity to most areas being restored by 2:20 p.m.
The Bayfords feeder remained offline until blown fuses were replaced, line inspection concluded and branches which were interfering with overhead lines were removed. Electricity was not fully restored until close to 5:00 p.m.
Sunday evening’s thunder storm, which stretched into the early hours of Monday morning, brought with it another island-wide blackout. It occurred at 12:35 a.m. (Mon. 12) and power was restored to all areas within an hour’s time barring the Cayon, Sandy Point, Bayfords and Basseterre N extensions (overhead lines).
The deteriorating weather prompted SKLEC’s management to withdraw its staff from the field owing to “dangerous conditions” which resulted in the overhead lines remaining without service until dawn.
After returning to the field however, according to the press release, staff successfully restored electricity to these lines by 8:00 a.m. However, some consumers in the Cayon area reported to SKNVibes that up to midmorning current had not been restored to their lines.
While persons were settling into their jobs after a restful weekend, another blackout occurred (8:35 a.m.) which was suspected to be the result of a “fault on the SSMC feeder”. That incident was under investigation; however, electricity was restored to most parts by 9:30 a.m.
