The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

SOME residents of Eastern New Providence were left without power for more than 10 hours after a car accident damaged a Bahamas Power and Light pole on Bernard Road.

There were also other isolated outages BPL had to address on Wednedsay night.

BPL’s director of public relations, Quincy Parker, said: “As for the outages in eastern New Providence, most of those were associated with a vehicular accident where a BPL pole was damaged on Bernard Road.

“The BPL feeder impacted affected not only Fox Hill and the Bernard Road area, but parts of Village Road and Blair as well.

“There were other isolated outages that required attendance. These delays addressing these outages highlight the manpower issues affecting BPL during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Tribune had numerous reports of large parts of Eastern Road, High Vista, Mount Vernon and Winton also been off power.

In the Bernard Road incident the problem was exacerbated because after the car collided with the pole carrying the main power cable it remained untouched for more than two hours after the collision. One BPL crew was in attendance but could do nothing to begin to restore supplies until after the car had been removed.

Workers at the scene said other BPL crews would be needed to assist and the whole repair would take another five to six hours. In the end it was nearly eight hours before supply was restored given hundreds of families without backup generators had very uncomfortable night.

Frustrated customers lamented the protracted outages on social media.

One person wrote on Facebook: “Bahamas Power and Light, honestly since right after 9pm last night and still off (this morning)...we can’t take much more. Please, we begging, turn the lights on!”

Another person complained: “Twelve and a half hours to fix a pole? Y’all need to get it together.”

In a separate statement, BPL said it was dealing with higher call volumes—nearly three times what is usually experienced this time of year—due to issues as a result of recent windy weather.

The call volumes have led to delays, which was described as “unavoidable” at this point.

“We are still well able to meet our service obligations, just not as quickly as we usually do,” BPL said.

“We wish to alert customers that we have made extra manpower provisions to assist with handling these calls, but given the overarching issues we are facing with COVID-19, our ability to bring in more manpower comes with safety and other considerations.”