Just when Bahamians thought Bahamas Power and Light couldn’t get any lousier, the train wreck of a power company proved them wrong.
Power has been flickering on and off in homes and businesses across New Providence for most of the day with some parts of the island experiencing blackouts from last night and straight into this afternoon.
BPL said that at 12:01PM, while performing switching operations at the national stadium, a fault on the transmission network resulted in both Big Pond Primary Substation and Blue Hills Power Station going offline.
“The Clifton Pier Power Station remained online supplying western and southwest New Providence. Customers in the East, southeast and central portions of New Providence were off for approximately two hours. We were able to isolate the problem, and our teams worked diligently to return the affected areas to service, beginning with the Shirley Street area around 1:30PM,” BPL said in a statement.
“Restoration efforts continued until just after 2PM, by which time our team was able to restore power to all the areas out of service except Fort Charlotte and Paradise Island. However, as our teams were working to bring the remaining customers back online, the engines at the Clifton Pier Power Station – which had remained on during the earlier outage – tripped offline, interrupting service for customers in the southwest and western portions of New Providence,” it continued.
At present, power is out for customers in:
· Devonshire Rd., Yorkshire St., Skyline Rd., portion of West Bay, Casaurina Hotel, Shopping Plaza, Delaporte, portion of Sandy Port, Tambearly School
· Cecil Wallace Whitfield Bldg., Bank of Nova Scotia, Commonwealth Bank, British American Bank, general area
· Prospect Ridge, Prospect Ridge Pumping Station, Skyline Lakes, J.F.K. (east of Prospect Ridge to Batelco) portion of Stapledon, Ministry of Works, Batelco, Royal Bank of Canada, Butler & Sands, Caribbean Bottling Co., License Plate Factory, St. Johns College
· Skyline Drive, Skyline Heights
· Coral Harbour
· Lyford Cay
· Harbour Bay Shopping Centre, Swiss Bank, Waterloo, Harbour View Properties, Ebenezer Methodist, Shirley Slope, Retirement Rd. to Hawkins Hill, Oriental Cleaners, Shirley park Ave., Buena Retiro Rd., Mackey Street (Salvation to Madeira St.), Victory St.
· Fox Hill Rd. (north of Prince Charles Dr.), Ferguson & Romerville Subs., St. Marks Baptist, Foxdale Sub., Cox St. Close Sub., Cockburn St. & all side streets, Bernard Rd. (west to Adderley St.), Blueberry Hill, Springfield Road, Portion of Elizabeth Est.
· Yamacraw East Port New Providence, Winton Meadows, Laural Hill Subdivision, John Claridge Subdivision
· Joe Farrington Road, Fox Hill Road South of Yamacraw, Lumumba Road, Yamacraw Beach Estates, Kool Air
· Colony Village, St Andrews Beach Estates, Seagull Gardens
BPL customers had their fingers crossed for a cooler summer after the disastrous summer of 2019, when New Providence residents experienced blackouts almost daily. However, it’s turning out to be another long and hot summer when BPL can’t keep the lights on but turns your light off if you one minute late to pay your bill.