The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

HARBOUR Island residents suffered a power cut this week that lasted more than 48 hours, disrupting business and the Christmas celebrations of hundreds of locals and visitors.

In a statement last night, Bahamas Power and Light said mechanical defects knocked the on-island rental generation offline, prompting the replacement of the generators.

"Our initial investigation into the incident appears to indicate that the cables connecting Harbour Island to the mainland at the Three Island Dock site failed sometime after the generators came offline," BPL said. "The two incidents are not connected and investigations into the cause of the failure of the cables is due to be completed by Friday of this week."

"Ultimately, it was the breakdown of the rental generation, combined with the failure of the cables, which caused the power supply difficulties on the island over the last few days. However, when the cables at the Three Island Dock site went down, BPL was able to take advantage of a new cable recently installed at our Whale Point Crossing site to bring back supply back to portions of the island. In addition, a technician for the rental company was able to get to the island by 2pm Thursday to assist in bringing the new rental generation online. As of about 5.15pm Thursday, BPL was reporting all customers were back on our system, with some being supplied through Whale Point and others being supplied from the power station."

The Progressive Liberal Party released a statement questioning BPL’s initial revelations about the incident, which said that a “major fault on the cable supplying power to Harbour Island resulted in the island having partial power for the past 48 hours,” prompting load shedding exercises.

“The residents in that community that rely heavily on tourism are questioning what the member of Parliament for North Eleuthera, Ricky Mackey, knows about this prolonged power failure and why he has not spoken out publicly on this matter and taken aggressive steps to address this in the middle of Harbour Island’s busiest season,” PLP Chairman Fred Mitchell said.

A source who wished to remain anonymous told this newspaper Mr Mackey owns a barge that accidentally ran up on the bank where BPL’s submarine cables are located. The source said it took two hours for the barge to escape the area; cuts to the cable were observed and it is suspected that this caused the cable failures.

Mr Mackey would not discuss the incident directly when contacted yesterday but said the outage was the result of a multitude of problems.

He said the island’s replacement generators were down for weeks and that he corresponded frequently with BPL’s CEO “to get everything up and running.”

“Two replacement generators were brought down (Wednesday) morning at my insistence,” he said yesterday. “I am currently at the BPL site now monitoring and ensuring we have full coverage, which we now have.”