After experiencing challenges and long-term outages on Feeder 7A on St. Thomas since Monday night, the V.I. Water and Power Authority has found the source of the problem, but might now have to take the feeder offline again to repair it.
Speaking to the Source Wednesday night, WAPA Chief Executive Officer Karl Knight said that in attempting to isolate the problem, the authority worked through a range of troubleshooting options, from de-energizing certain portions, switching customers to a different feeder to lighten the load, and doing some additional tree and bush trimming after this week’s unexpected storm.
In the process of getting that done and energizing the feeder one more time, they were able to identify the problem spot after observing sparks fly from a portion of the line. Crews are now mobilizing to fix the issue, but there might be another “intermittent outage” as repairs get underway, Knight said.
He added that he has committed to doing a comprehensive review of the challenges experienced by Feeder 7A customers over the past year, to make sure that the authority has not missed “anything of substance that is occurring.” Knight apologized to customers, many of whom were offline for more than 24 hours.
