And We Have Power! And It’s Going to Get Better!

Well folks, WAPA said we’d have power Thursday night, and we had power Thursday night! So a HUGE thank you to the crews of WAPA (and BBC if you were involved in the restoration) for getting the lights back on!

We planned to tell you about some power updates earlier this week, but obviously put that on hold while we were in the dark. 🙂 So today, I’d like to briefly tell you about what’s happening here on island regarding our power system.

For starters, if you have been on island lately, you may have noticed that some parts of St. John have composite poles. These telescopic poles were originally installed on the Coral Bay side of the island after the storms. Well the good news is that BBC is now slated to stay on island through the end of the year, and they will be replacing all of the wooden poles with these stronger, composite, telescopic poles. And even better – they can withstand winds of up to 220 miles per hour, according to one of the BBC guys we chatted with earlier this week. He said the poles are designed to give a little during strong winds, and should not snap like many of our wooden poles did.

We’ve also learned that the power lines in Cruz Bay are slated to go underground … how great is that! This is why none of the wooden poles have been replaced with the composite poles, which is currently happening along Centerline Road.

So it’s nice to hear that plans are in the works to strengthen our power here on St. John. Now let’s cross our fingers that plans are also in the works to strengthen the power plant over in St. Thomas…