POWERLESS! WAPA customers at the mercy of utility company’s utter incompetence

CHARLOTTE AMALIE — Frustration and outrage is growing across the territory yet again, as Wednesday’s unscheduled rolling blackouts left thousands of Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority customers suffering through another hot, humid day without reliable electricity.

In response to questions from a reporter, WAPA spokeswoman Shanell Petersen said that the utility hasn’t identified the cause of the blackouts, and doesn’t know when the failures might be resolved.

Lightning struck the Randolph Harley power plant on St. Thomas on May 8, causing a districtwide outage, and several more outages have followed in the two weeks since. Petersen said Wednesday that plant staff are investigating whether there is still damage from the lightning that is causing the ongoing blackouts.