The Tribune

By Annelia Nixon

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Utility woes have improved but they haven’t improved enough as some Eleutherans are still experiencing constant power outages and water interruptions which are negatively impacting their businesses.

Hepzibah McCartney, owner of Hidden Persia based in Tarpum Bay, told Tribune Business she is in the process of renting her business to someone else, despite not even having her grand opening yet. Opened in August on her birthday, Ms McCartney said in the past three weeks alone the restaurant and bar has been closed more days than it’s been open and her decision to jump ship rests mainly with the side effects of the utility woes on the island.

“I have been talking to people to rent my business,” Ms McCartney said. “People that can afford to put in a well and a tank and a pumping system. I’ve just given up. I’m already in the process of interviewing people.”

Ms McCartney said the water issues in Eleuthera make doing business unsanitary.

“So if the water is off all day and I have people in here that are using the restrooms, after a while that smell will travel through to the bar and restaurant,” she began. “That is very unsanitary. So when that happens, I have to close until the water comes on or until I find some water to flush the toilets. You can’t cook food and serve food when you have a smell of raw sewage coming out of your bathrooms, just sitting there all day. And then some people stop here, they’ve travelled from deep south or north. So they’ve been travelling for a while so sometimes it’s just not a tinkle, so it’s really discouraging.”

“I’m in a restaurant from early in the morning preparing, seasoning up. When I go to open, I usually open at night. I open late to catch the late crowd. Can you imagine after seasoning up a case of chicken wings all day, pork chop, fish and everything and you can’t shower.

Adding that “absolutely nothing has changed”, Ms McCartney expressed her disappointment in both Water and Sewerage and Bahamas Power and Light and said she no longer bothers to read the messages in the utility social media groups.

“And they keep telling us in the Water and Sewage group that they’re bringing in specialists,” she said. “They have this part and that pipe and the pipes must pressurise in order for us to get water. And see, I’m on a hill. So apparently us that are situated on higher elevations have more issues than other people. And I don’t understand it. If a pipe is pressurised, shouldn’t it be enough water to go uphill as well? Should that make a difference? I’m at the point where I don’t even look at the group anymore. I just fill bottles and be prepared. I’m back in the 1800s and I’ve come to terms with it.”

She added: “If you look on social media, you can see Eluthera people complaining about all of the utilities, everything. It’s like nothing on Eleuthera is working. And we have this administration. They’re here now breaking ground, because election is coming up, for a new hospital when we don’t have decent water. How are they going to run a hospital without water?”

She said she has about 50 gallons of water sitting on the porch, adding “this is how we survive”. She noted that it feels like Eleuthera is being punished for something and suggested that both BPL and WSC should be bought for potentially better management.

“I think they should find a foreign country that could afford to buy both of them and have them properly managed because we certainly are not capable,” she said. “And I can’t believe that I’m saying that about utilities in the country where I was born but obviously they’re not capable.”

Keyshna Kemp, owner of Da Wash House and Transformations Fitness Centre in north Eleuthera told Tribune Business that while she’s seen a vast improvement in terms of water, she said they “were doing somewhat okay” with power outages until the passage of Hurricane Milton.

“I can’t speak for the south and Harbour Island, but for the most part they were doing somewhat okay until when that storm passed that didn’t even pass here,” Ms Kemp began. “That really didn’t affect us like that but yet somehow we had lines down and it was crazy like the same thing. Now we have lines down today with 20mph breeze if that’s it.

“I personally, I do not know the mechanics of it, but we need to get to a place where we can have light breeze blowing, a light storm, and still there’s not a ton of lines down. The other day when Milton was way off someplace else, we had lines over the bridge down, the length and breadth of this island, I do not know who is putting up these poles, the wire. I don’t know if they’re splitting them too often, why these are falling down like this and then you had an entire pole went down. I would hope that they’re doing routine maintenance, that they’re driving throughout the communities and I’m sure a seasoned linesman can look at a pole, look at the line and tell ‘okay, I’m going to need to change that shortly.’

“I know they’re under staff. I understand and I appreciate that they are under staff. With that being said, that’s a BPL problem that should not be visited on the consumers. They need to deal with proper training and staffing for their facilities.”

Ms Kemp said at the time of the interview that the electricity was off and had been for a few hours. She added that a customer’s clothing was in the washer at the time of the outage and he had more to set aside to wash as well. She said people has been singing about business owners investing in generators but noted that they are costly.

“The thing is, as a small business person, I would love to have a generator but so many other equipment that I need to purchase for my business first and now even to bring a generator in here. How many washers can a regular generator run? I need to bring in something heavy duty.”

Ms Kemp also noted that residents know not to visit her gym when the electricity goes out because her doors require power to function and it will get extremely hot. However, she added that power has been stable in the north recently.