Hours after Hurricane Isaias churned away from Acklins, portions of that island remain in darkness tonight.
North, Central and Salina Point residents have been waiting for Bahamas Power and Light to restore their power supply from this morning.
“We have no power in our house and we just turned on the generator with the little bit of diesel we have,” said one resident who added, “BPL’s line that runs from the main road to our house caught fire and it broke loose.”
Power has been restored to many areas affected by Hurricane Isaias long after the category one storm lashed Acklins, leaving residents to question what is taking BPL so long to bring the island back online.
BPL said in a statement earlier today, “Due to the exponentially greater impact storms have on the smaller and more fragile systems on the Family Islands, when conditions become unsafe to operate, our preference is to shut the entire island down until it is safe to energize.”
“In that vein, as of 2PM, Long Island joined Mayaguana, Acklins and Crooked Island. These islands are off and will remain so until the storm passes or it is safe to re-energize.”
The power company has provided no further update on Acklins since then.
The government has discontinued Hurricane warnings for most of the country. Hurricane Isaias did minimal damage in The Bahamas with some islands reporting minor flooding and a few downed trees and power lines.
Bahamians flooded BPL’s Facebook page with complaints about hours-long power outages that persisted long after the storm had passed.
“Y’all was just trying to cut 16,000 households off for accounts in arrears but a little breeze have people light off for more than a day. Can’t be serious. People paying good money and don’t have anything to show for it,” said one angry customer.
“Sometimes I really wonder why I pay my bill on time!” exclaimed another consumer.