St. Peters residents irate over unscheduled 12-hour electricity interruption
By Terresa McCall
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – RESIDENTS of the St. Peters community have voiced their concern and outrage over an unscheduled electricity outage that took place early on Thursday evening and ended yesterday.
The St. Kitts Nevis Information Service (SKNIS) on Thursday issued a Load Shedding Schedule for October 2 and 3 outlining which communities on St. Kitts would be without electricity at times of the load-shedding process.
According to the schedule, the electricity supply was not to have been interrupted in the St. Peters area until 8:00 yesterday morning and was to have returned at 4:00 in the afternoon.
Thursday evening, sometime between 6:20 and 6: 35, the electricity supply was interrupted in the St. Peters area, a disruption which was not listed on the load-shedding schedule and, according to information reaching SKNVibes, the electricity supply there was not restored until sometime after 7:00 Friday morning.
That schedule was careful to note that “the situation is dynamic” and that the schedule is “subject to change”. ~~Adz:Right~~
SKNVibes was contacted by a number of residents of that area who, obviously peeved at the current state affairs, noted the fact that the unscheduled electricity interruption that took place is not the source of their concern, but rather the duration of the outage.
“Yesterday (Thursday) I reached home about 4:45 and because I learnt earlier in the day that electricity was not scheduled to go off until 8:00 today (Friday)...I was not in any rush to do what I had to do. Needless to say, I was quite surprised when sometime after 6:00 last night, the electricity went. I had lots of work to do and preparations for the next day, but at that stage, I was not concerned because I figured the electricity supply would be restored within a couple of hours,” an anonymous St. Peters resident explained to SKNVibes.
The individual noted that they became concerned when at 10:00 p.m. the electricity supply had not been restored.
“Sometime after 10:00 is when I really got concerned because there were important things which I needed to do before the next day (Oct. 03). Electricity did not return until about 7:25 this morning and needless to say, those things did not get done and I will have to suffer the consequences although it was not my fault.”
Another resident of the area echoed those sentiments and added, “I was very frustrated because I had work to do last night and electricity went abruptly.”
“It’s a terrible situation and if they have to take power for long stretches of time it should not be a 12 hour period. It should be broken up into small periods,” a perturbed woman explained.
One individual told SKNVibes that because of the extended absence of electricity supply, he and his child were forced to sleep in his vehicle. He explained that he took this action because the toddler, who was extremely fussy owing to the heat, could only be quieted after being taken outdoors.
In accordance with the load shedding schedule, the electricity supply was interrupted in the St. Peters and other areas at about 8:00 yesterday morning and was expected to return around 4:00 in the afternoon.
