Barbadians Face Utility Challenges After Hurricane Beryl; Firms Strive for Solutions

Thousands of Barbadians remained without essential utilities on Tuesday after Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 storm, battered the island with storm-force winds on Monday night. The hurricane also devastated the fishing industry and significantly damaged coastal infrastructure.

At a stakeholders’ press conference, utility providers sought to assure customers that a large percentage of services had been restored, with work continuing to ensure a full return in the shortest possible time.

The Barbados Light & Power Company revealed that about 35 000 customers, or 25 per cent of their base, lost electricity during the storm. By Tuesday morning, this number had been reduced to 4 400, or approximately two per cent of customers.

Light & Power spokeswoman Casandra Crawford told reporters: “We certainly appreciate our customers, and we ask for your patience and understanding at this time, as our crews continue to work really hard to restore power.”

The largest outage affects 1 500 consumers in Woodbourne, St Philip, with additional pockets in Fortescue, St Philip, and in Christ Church, the coastal residential areas of Inch Marlow and Atlantic Shores.

“We also want you to know that while we are trying to restore everyone and we would be happy to be able to restore all customers today to full power, we also want to be realistic, and we ask that you recognise that different jobs in some of these pockets can be more complex, and our teams are still assessing,” Crawford said.

“We have literally mapped out all of the areas where there are outages, and we are managing those situations…. We are trying to deal with that large pocket of customers, and trying to get those restored. We just ask for your continued patience.”

Crawford urged customers to report issues via WhatsApp at 262-4300, providing pole numbers, addresses and photos to assist with assessments and repairs.

The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) announced that all pumping stations were operational, though some were not at full capacity. General Manager Keithroy Halliday reported: “At this time, I can confirm that all stations are pumping, but not optimally. We are at 85, 86 per cent coverage for stations pumping optimally.”

Three critical stations – Groves, Bowmanston, and the Ionics desalination plant – are operating at reduced capacity. Halliday assured that measures were being taken to address affected areas, with water service expected to improve over the next 24 to 36 hours.

“With Ionics, because we had ramped up the production from our Belle [Pumping Station], we were able over the night into the morning to send additional water into that distribution system directly to St Stephen’s, and as a result, we were able to start pumping only about an hour, two hours ago water up into University [Drive], Wanstead Drive, West Terrace, Husbands Heights, St James. That particular area, that was the second area outside of Hampton distribution system that was out of water recently.”

Halliday said those areas should be receiving water again.

“Notwithstanding the fact that we were not able to pump from the Ionics desalination plant optimally, we should now have water going to those affected areas. Out of the Bowmanston area, as the system becomes replenished, as the lines become charged, based on demand, those customers in those distribution systems that are affected directly by the Bowmanston area such as the water that’s going into Golden Ridge, Castle Grant, St Joseph and the environs, they too, will see less incidence of outages and improvement in the water pressure over the next 18 to 24 hours.”

The BWA boss told reporters that the Groves situation was taking a little longer, having not been online, and the company got it to pump at 25 per cent and now two-thirds.

He explained that the variable frequency drives, which determine the flow and pressure of the water, had to be changed.

“So, we are comfortable at this point in time with where we are. We are comfortable that we have done certainly what we needed to do,” Halliday said.

He said that the tanker service was immediately deployed, particularly to critical areas such as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Ambulance Service. The tanker service continues to be made available to the people in the north, especially in light of the evidence of brown water, he added.

The Barbados National Oil Company Ltd (BNOCL) reassured the public that there were no major concerns regarding fuel supply. Damien Catlyn, group health safety and quality manager, said: “We have in excess of 17 days supply of fuel on island for diesel and around 12 days supply for gasoline, with the vessel en route to Trinidad to collect 30 000 barrels more of gasoline, 19 000 barrels of diesel; and those would be offloaded on island, hopefully over the weekend. We also have about 15 000 barrels of heavy fuel oil for Light & Power that’s on board the vessel as well. So, there is no danger of shortage on island at the moment,”

He explained that recent shortages at some petrol stations were due to “surge” or “panic buying” rather than an actual shortage of fuel on the island.

Another vessel is on its way to Barbados with four more containers of the product. “That is the liquified natural gas, and our field is still producing natural gas at present. So, again, we are not in any major concern in relation to fuels,” Catlyn reported.

Telecommunications providers Digicel and Flow reported progress in restoring services. Digicel announced that 87 per cent of its business customers were back online, with remaining issues primarily due to fibre breaks or power outages. Flow assured customers that reconnections were being treated as a priority.

“We are actively working with the Barbados Light and Power,” said Digicel’s head of marketing Ashley Dyall. “We have an open line with them. And once that is sorted, those customers would also be online.”

Flow’s communications manager Allan Harris added: “While there are going to be some Barbadians out there without fixed connectivity – that’s broadband, television and, of course, landline – we are treating reconnections as a matter of priority. Once our damage assessment crew has returned with the relevant information, we will be having our engineers deployed into the field as soon as possible.”

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb