Editor’s Note: This is part one, which covers the cause of the recent extended power outage on St. John.
St. John residents let out decades of pent-up resentments at a town-hall meeting hosted by Karl Knight, CEO of the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority on Wednesday evening.
Residents piled into the Julius E. Sprauve School cafeteria in Cruz Bay to vent their frustrations that peaked as a result of a power outage that began on Saturday night, March 14, and finally ended on Tuesday morning, March 17, with intermittent outages following the next day.
Knight spent three hours explaining the cause of the disruption and taking questions from audience members about plans to replace compromised submarine cables from St. Thomas, install generators, swap out faulty electrical meters, and develop solar energy sources.
But he was also forced to address “the human factors” — food and medicine (and money) lost because of lack of refrigeration, seniors left alone in the dark, and the failure of WAPA staff to keep the public informed during the outages, as well as provide accountability with billing issues.
The meeting was preceded by a demonstration held in Frank Powell Park in Cruz Bay. Protesters urged passersby to attend the meeting and sign a petition demanding that WAPA become accountable in a number of ways, including declaring a state of emergency, which would allow the public to file claims for losses resulting from the outage.
As people piled into the Sprauve School cafeteria at 5:30 p.m., the sound system failed and the scene became more chaotic. Frustration mounted when it became known that WAPA was not able to livestream the meeting on Facebook because of an internet outage earlier in the day. However, the meeting was recorded on a cellphone and can be seen here.
Causes of the outage
Knight began the meeting, which was planned in February before the March outage occurred, by explaining what went wrong on March 14. The outage was rumored to be caused by a failure of the submarine cable between St. Thomas and St John, but Knight said the submarine portion of the cable was not at fault. It appears that a land-based part of the cable was damaged by an act of vandalism.
Knight showed a photo of a cable in Red Hook with cuts that were apparently man-made, perhaps by vandals, perhaps by someone attempting to steal copper.
“The protection on the line tripped before someone was electrocuted,” Knight said, adding that an arc of light might have been visible at the time of the incident, that police had been notified, and the hospital had been warned to be on the lookout for burn victims.
“How is it that the cable was accessible to vandals? And why were there no cameras?” asked an audience member.
“I can’t answer why it wasn’t secured,” said Knight. “There are a lot things we try to do as a company. Nobody has ever tampered (with equipment) like this. It’s probably on the list (of things to do), but it wasn’t the biggest crisis we faced.”
(On Wednesday, residents challenged this explanation by Knight on social media posts, asking why there was no sign of burn damage to the cable as might be expected.)
Knight continued his explanation of the repairs made by crews who conducted tests and prematurely announced Saturday morning that they had successfully connected to an abandoned transmission line, marked as AA in the photo.
“What we didn’t know was that there was damage, which was not apparent, in the junction box, and that resulted in a fire,” Knight said.
“When we first were energized, we thought (the problem) was just a cut, but it created a fault, and one of the phases of our three-phase power was compromised,” he said.
Knight said that crews were finally able to restore power by combining the two phases from line A and one from Line AA. “That’s why we’re able to be here tonight,” he said.
WAPA has two other transmission lines that serve St. John from St. Thomas, but neither of them works. The Cabrita Point line was put in around 2006, but was damaged sometime around 2021, possibly by someone attempting to remove sargassum seaweed. As its purpose was to provide redundancy, it was not slated for immediate repair.
Knight said a local contractor has now been found to complete the repairs; they are identifying the scope of the work and are procuring materials from manufacturers. Following that, “We would like to get it repaired within 30 days,” he said.
The fourth line, which supports transmission to Cruz Bay, was damaged during the hurricanes of 2017. “This is the only line that is available for federal funding, and is part of a FEMA bundle. We expect construction to begin in 2027,” Knight said.
“We’re restoring layers of redundancy, and we need to put in a third transmission line,” Knight said, adding that WAPA is now working with VI Next Generation Network to bundle WAPA’s electricity transmission with viNGN’s telecommunication line. He described the agreement as “pending.”
(Part two will discuss “the human factor” and questions regarding generators and solar power on St. John.)
