WAPA continues efforts to restore power

The V.I. Water and Power Authority is continuing to work to bring customers back online after Hurricane Earl’s brush with the territory, a spokeswoman said.

In the St. Thomas-St. John District, WAPA energized the East End substation Tuesday afternoon, according to WAPA spokeswoman Cassandra Dunn.

“That has allowed us to pick up more of the load, pick up more of the demand, for the East End of St. Thomas, as well as St. John,” she said.

Dunn said that none of the utility’s feeders is less than 50 percent energized, and the feeders are prepared to accept load.

“They anticipate that most of the feeders will be more or less 100 percent energized by tomorrow evening,” Dunn said Tuesday. “However, that does not mean everyone will be hooked up.”

And even though the feeders may be ready to accept electrical load, there are weather-related problems down the line that will have to be repaired around the island before some customers will be able to get power, she said.

Dunn said she did not have figures for the exact number of customers who were out of power after the storm.

However, she did say that in the St. Thomas-St. John District, peak load is typically about 82 megawatts. Early Tuesday evening, it was about 30 megawatts in that district.

On St. Croix, peak load is typically about 55 megawatts, and early Tuesday evening, it was about 32 megawatts, Dunn said.

A crew was scheduled to go to Water Island today, and Dunn said the utility anticipated having Water Island back online by the end of the day today, “barring unforeseen circumstances.”

Also, two crews will be working Feeder 10b in the Frenchman’s Bay area of St. Thomas today, where a large tree “got knocked down on the primary line,“ Dunn said. Other crews will be out across the islands.

On Tuesday, crews concentrated on working with the V.I. Education Department to get schools energized, Dunn said, adding that some schools had more problems than others.

On St. Croix, all the feeders are energized again, although each of them — except Feeder 4 — has problems, Dunn said.

“There remains approximately 40 percent of normal daily load that’s not on the system at this time,” she said of St. Croix.

WAPA has extra help to bring customers back into service in the wake of Earl, Dunn said.

Territorywide, about 105 WAPA personnel, divided into crews, are working on the lines, Dunn said. Additionally, the WAPA crews are augmented by contracted crews from elsewhere.

Bryan’s Electric is providing two crews and extra equipment for the St. Thomas-St. John District, while NR Electric is providing additional bucket trucks for St. Croix, she said.

“We’re optimistic that in a few days, we will be able to finish most of the work,” she said.

On the water side, Dunn said it does not appear that water quality was compromised by the storm.

“There’s been no structural damage to the water storage tanks or the pump stations,” she said, adding that one pump station was without power on St. Thomas, but officials expected that situation to be corrected Tuesday evening.

There had been no damage to the water system on St. Croix, she said.

— Contact Joy Blackburn at 774-8772 ext. 455 or e-mail jblackburn@dailynews.vi.

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