St Andrew, other northern parishes go without power, BLP says full restoration in a week

There was growing frustration across St Andrew among other rural parishes Thursday as they faced a full week without electricity since the passage of Hurricane Elsa.

Residents told Barbados TODAY of feeling grossly misinformed by Light & Power about the magnitude of the situation that has left them in the dark on the work being done to restore power.

While some parishes still have outages in small pockets, most of St Andrew was still without power as Thursday gave way to Friday.

Residents and small businesses said they face thousands of dollars in spoilage, while some workers are unable to report to their jobs and students preparing for important exams have been studying by candlelight.

In Belleplaine, St Andrew, Angela Carrington said: “The Barbados Light and Power needs to stop saying there are trucks in St Andrew because we are not seeing any trucks. Yes, I understand that all over the lines are down, but stop printing that trucks are in Belleplaine when you’re not seeing any.

“We haven’t seen anybody coming through the district to ask questions or to see what is going on, but still every day they are putting in the paper ‘trucks in Belleplaine’, which is a lie.

“You can’t iron, you can’t call anybody to tell them anything, because with the electricity off, the telephone is off too which is a foolish thing because if you go back in time when anything happened, you could at least pick up your phone and call and say something. Now they’ve come up with this foolishness about fibre optics and when the electricity goes off your phone goes off.”

Unlike traditional copper-wire telephone lines which used telephone company internal power, today’s telecom units powered by mains electricity drive fibre optic voice, cable television and broadband data services.

Longtime St Andrew resident Oldwin Skeete called on the monopoly power utility to answer for the suffering he said the company imposed on residents by poor management of the situation after a category one hurricane hit the island. He lay much of the blame at the feet of BL&P parent Emera.

On Thursday, the Barbados Light & Power said electricity had been restored to 90 per cent of its customers with a further 11,000 customers likely to be reconnected within another week.

Managing Director Roger Blackman told a news conference that the Belleplaine feeder in St Andrew is still to be connected.

He explained that the process was being hindered by lack of access and the level of damage.

But Skeete declared: “From Monday, we saw a list from the Barbados Light and Power saying that 70 percent of the island has been restored and on the to-do-list areas were St Andrew, St Lucy, certain parts of St Peter, certain parts of St Philip and pockets that were left out in St Michael and so on. Up until this moment, we have not seen a utility truck from the Barbados Light and Power venturing into St Andrew or any area at all. It is very frustrating to the people.”

The resident, the Democratic Labour Party candidate for the constituency, declared that St Andrew – the island’s most hilly parish in the heart of the Scotland District – appeared to have been treated similarly during last month’s freak storm and over 10 years ago when Tropical Storm Tomas affected the country.

He told Barbados TODAY: “Before the storm, Light and Power said that they have things in place and they had their backup plan, but it doesn’t seem as though the backup plan is working. Since the takeover of Emera by Light and Power, I think that the service has not been as fruitful as it used to be. I used to rate light and power as the most efficient utility company, but now I have to rethink that position.”

“I know there were major linemen before who used to facilitate this kind of situation, but we see [fewer] linemen on the road. So Emera needs to come to the people of Barbados and tell the people what is the current situation that obtains with Light and Power.”

In St Peter at Indian Ground, Sledge Pond, and French Village, the story was the same. According to reports, there was severe damage to poles and power lines at Missing Bottom, triggering a domino effect on surrounding communities.

Marcia Maynard complained that, like Belleplaine, she had seen no BL&P crews working in the area or even making inquiries.

Maynard, who looks after her elderly mother with a broken hip, complained that she must now cook small amounts of food on a daily basis because there is no other way of storing the food beyond a few hours.

“My little nephew had CXCs this week and he had to be studying with a candle and he has an exam today,” said the St Peter resident. “For the entire week they were trying to work during the day, but sometimes you can study better during the night than during the day.

“They could have brought a few generators in the area or something that could bring the residents some sort of relief until they could get around to doing the wires.

“While I was here I have seen nobody passing through from the Light and Power… you are hearing all kinds of things. It was supposed to come on by Wednesday. Today is Thursday, then they’re saying probably next week and nobody knows when. They’re probably saying we are in the countryside, so we must be accustomed to the dark. But I can also understand. This is the first time that anything like this has happened.”

Emmerson Worrell, 77, of Sedge Pond, St Peter, who lives with his wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren recalled that almost everyone in his household has been visiting homes in other parts of the parish to charge laptops and tablets in an effort to study.

“Right now my wife had to throw away things that you would have put to freeze… we had to unpick a lot of things and throw it in the garbage and so on,” the elderly man added.

Denis Ramsay revealed that it has been “rough” having to throw away significant amounts of spoiled goods.

But he added: “There is nothing I can do. I think they are doing the best that they can do, because you have to take time to work on these things. There are trees out there and they don’t move trees. They may have to wait until the MTW [Ministry of Transport and Works] comes to move the trees so they can get to work. It doesn’t make any sense hollering, because if you holler, the power still won’t be there.”

The BL&P assured that its crews along with their counterparts from Dominica were working tirelessly to provide relief to the remaining customers in the shortest possible time.

(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)