The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

AMID complaints from residents in western New Providence about recent power outages, a Bahamas Power and Light representative said the power cuts were a result of severe lightning conditions.

Sunday night, leading into Monday morning, residents of western New Providence reportedly started experiencing power outages after a thunderstorm.

“The outages were a result of severe lightning conditions last night (Sunday),” the company representative said. “We also experienced our own network failure last night (Sunday) so we weren’t able to receive customer calls.”

On its Facebook page yesterday, the Bahamas Department of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the islands of South Andros, Cat Island, San Salvador, Rum Cay, New Providence, Central Andros and the Exumas.

“Some of these showers will be locally heavy and thunderstorms will be strong to severe at times causing strong gusty winds, dangerous lightning, heavy downpours, hail and possible waterspout or tornadic activity. Localised flooding is also possible during these storms,” said the Department of Meteorology.

Some people took to social media to express their frustration on the power outages.

One Facebook user said: “Bahamas Power and Light had our electricity off for six plus hours tonight. No consideration for families that have young kids or kids in general or the elderly or persons who are sick and need electricity for care and to operate machinery.

“That’s what’s worst. Sweating in the dark, no apology or a valid reason why it was off for so long. And it ain’t like they’ll compensate their customers for the inconvenience; if anything, they do increase your light bill.”

The company said power was fully restored to the affected areas.