NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) has advised that while customers in Bimini, Great Harbour Cay, Rum Cay and Inagua have been restored, controlled outages on several islands throughout the country will continue as Hurricane Isaias makes its way out of The Bahamas.
In its latest update, BPL indicated that advance teams were out in New Providence assessing known problem areas in preparation for returning power supply to the system in a “safe and orderly manner”.
The power company advised that during the passage of Isaias, total service interruptions were experienced at four of its 21 substations in New Providence.
Bonita Bay (Yamacraw, Treasure Cove, Port New Providence, portions of Fox Hill Road etc.) and Skyline (West Bay Street to Delaport) were restored, BPL said.
According to the power provider, teams were working diligently to restore service at Ernest Street (Twynam Subdivision and residences off Rosetta Street, together with Bay Street, and Gladstone Road (Carmichael, Golden Isles, Bacardi, Firetrail and Milo Butler West).
“At this point in our initial patrols, we are not offering a timeframe for restoration since we are tasked at this stage to ascertain the health of the network and get the primary substations back on,” BPL said.
“Once that is completed, we will start looking at feeders out of those substations and move into the next phase of restoration.”
The power company indicated customers in Andros remained offline due to heavy winds and limited rain.
Power supply was expected to remain off until the weather improves.
Customers on Long Island, from the station in Millers through Stella Maris, remained online throughout the adverse weather conditions. All areas south of the station in Millers was offline with line damage reported and repairs were underway.
BPL said customers in the northern area of the island were impacted by minor line damage and a severe thunder and lightning storm in the area was still hampering efforts to restore supply to the remainder of the island.
Eleuthera was experiencing windy conditions resulting in lines clashing in the south, according to BPL.
The Rock Sound station was offline, along with all areas south of the station.
Areas from Hatchet Bay station to Governor’s Harbor airport and Hatchet Bay to Oleander Gardens still had power, along with Harbour Island.
However, areas from Whale’s Point to the Bluff is off and everything South of Rock Sound station is off.
BPL said a crew from the north was assessing the matter and expected to turn on everything from Governor’s Harbor airport to Tarpum Bay. Meanwhile, the crew in the south was preparing to start turning the power on in the south.
Exuma reported that all areas were turned off around 3.21pm yesterday and has yet to be turned back on. A team was mobilized this morning to commence initial patrols and will begin energizing, the power provider said.
San Salvador lost power supply around 2pm to the north of the station and shorter after 2.31pm when the south circuit tripped offline. Power was restored to both areas by 6.30pm yesterday.
Cat Island reported that the south feeder was on from the station through Old Bight (Dean Wood). The north circuit is on through Arthur’s Town airport.
The island reported limited damage to two poles thus far, one of which has already been replaced, BPL said.
Ragged Island went offline at 5.30pm yesterday and was brought online this morning.
On Mayaguana, Pirates Wells was taken offline last night as a result of a line problem that was repaired. The area was restored this morning.
On Crooked Island, there was a delay to complete restoration of power supply island-wide due to faulty transformers forcing five customers to remain without supply earlier today.
