Nov. 11, 2003 – All of St. John and the East End of St. Thomas lost power around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, thanks to the day's heavy rains, and as of 10 p.m. much of the communities remained in the dark.
"We had a failure in the cable going to the East End," Glenn Rothgeb, chief operating officer at the Water and Power Authority, said.
According to Rothgeb, flooding in a manhole near the Lucinda Millin Home for the Aged in the Long Bay area east of downtown Charlotte Amalie caused the problem. He said WAPA was patching in power from other lines in efforts at restoring service.
As of 8 p.m., Rothgeb said, a portion of St. Thomas's East End had power, but the remainder of the East End and most of St. John were still without electricity. Some of Cruz Bay was operating on generator power.
Rothgeb said he expected power to be fully restored by late Tuesday night.
He also said that WAPA's planned backup power distribution system should be in place within six months and that the system is expected to eliminate sustained outages such as the one that occurred on Tuesday.
The project involves installation of a third feeder to carry electricity from WAPA's Krum Bay plant to St. Thomas's East End. WAPA officials have said it will also be instrumental in providing additional power that will go to St. John's new substation when it is built. (See "New feeder to stop East End power outages".)
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