A power outage that left St. John without electricity for more than 24 hours has renewed discussion about emergency preparedness and support for vulnerable residents.
It was the second time in six weeks that the island experienced a lengthy outage. Electrical service from the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority was interrupted at 5:29 p.m. Feb. 6 and restored at 6:25 p.m. Feb. 7.
The timing of when customers lost power varied. A WAPA spokesperson said the weekend-long blackout began at 9:57 p.m. Saturday. Corporate Communications Director Shanell Spencer said evidence of deliberate harm prompted utility officials to notify police.
“Someone deliberately tampered with the transmission line,” Spencer said. “This was vandalism.”
A WAPA crew responding to the outage briefly restored power Sunday by activating a backup transmission line. Electrical service was fully restored by Tuesday morning, with some residents regaining power Monday night.
Chocolate Hole resident Alan Smith said he lost service beginning March 14. “It came back during the night or early in the morning on the 17th,” Smith said.
Public Services Commission member Laura Nichols-Samms said she heard some residents had power restored by Tuesday. “I was aware that the power was out for an extended period of time on St. John,” she said. “I think the public needs a good explanation about what happened and why it happened.”
Some residents turned to social media to watch a Monday afternoon press briefing posted to Facebook by utility officials, while others used the platform to vent frustrations.
Love City Strong Case Manager Kela Brathwaite pointed to the risks extended outages pose for elderly residents and those who rely on electrically powered medical devices. “I will be going door to door and making phone calls checking on our seniors and vulnerable residents, because if community organizations don’t step in, who will?” Brathwaite said.
“This is not just an inconvenience. This is a safety issue. This is a human issue,” she said. A follow-up visit Tuesday to the Love City Strong office at St. John Marketplace with Senior Project Manager Mandy Lemley confirmed the group maintains a list of residents who depend on medical devices and those who require refrigerated medications.
The weekend blackout also prompted a social media post from St. John Rescue offering oxygen to those in need. “It is really critical; to breathe without oxygen, you’ll die. If you go a certain amount of time and your machine dies — if you have a concentrator that plugs into the wall — the power was out for almost three days, and if the power is out you have all that time without oxygen,” Bob Malacarne, president of St. John Rescue said.
Smith said he spent several hours Tuesday developing a proposal to create a resiliency hub for the Chocolate Hole Homeowners’ Association. “Helping people pay for groceries is fine, but it doesn’t fix the problem. We have to fix the underlying problem because WAPA doesn’t have the capacity to solve the problem,” he said.
On Monday, WAPA Chief Executive Officer Karl Knight invited St. John residents to a town meeting March 24 to discuss the path forward. “I certainly believe that the people of St. John deserve a power system that is reliable and resilient, and that work continues every day,” Knight said.
