BVIEC reports minor impacts of TS Karen on grid, most affected areas fully restored

Almost all of the areas that experienced a power outage during Tropical Storm Karen has been restored.

This is according to the General Manager of BVI Electricity Corporation (BVIEC) Leroy Abraham, who told BVI News on Wednesday afternoon that his team was swiftly deployed to the affected areas to deal with all issues.

“Due to the impact of the weather with the distribution networks, those issues were assessed, identified and rectified essentially and the power put back on,” Abraham stated.

He further said: “The majority of the areas are back up and running. There are still a few isolated customers on the system that we are dealing with, in terms of rectifying. I think the majority of them have already been addressed but for the most part, everything is back to normal from this morning (Wednesday, September 25).”

Persons also took to social media to commend the BVIEC for quickly restoring the electricity in most of the areas which were affected.

Commenting on his electricity wrkers’ response, the BVIEC General Manager said they usually rectify issues in a timely manner, once a situation does not jeopardize the safety of his employees.

Electricity grid performed well

Abraham also said the territory’s electricity infrastructure did well to withstand the strong winds and showers presented by Karen.

“I think it performed very well. We have 15 feeders that feed the territory and based on the report we had, we only had issues with three. In terms of things like wire breaks or situations impacting those lines, those were assessed and rectified relatively quickly, so those feeders went back on last night.”

Loud noise from blown fuses

A few residents who experienced outages had reported on social media that they heard their community transformer explode just before losing power. 

But Abraham explained that it was not a transformer that had made the noise, but rather a fuse.

“I don’t think we had any blown transformers. Those would have been the relevant fuses on the network blowing which is what they are designed to do once anything comes into contact with the line.”