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Total blackout strikes St. Thomas and St. John in the US Virgin Islands twice this weekend
Utility crews restored power overnight before another outage hit, as officials blamed generation loss and years of weak capacity and deferred maintenance.
- A total blackout hit St. Thomas and St. John early Sunday, the second islandwide power failure this weekend as the U.S. Virgin Islands struggles with increasingly frequent outages.
- The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority reported the outages stemmed from generation loss, as aging generators and deferred maintenance persist despite $100 million in federal investment in recent years.
- Hurricanes Irma and Maria damaged up to 90% of transmission and distribution systems in September 2017, while more than half of the petroleum-fueled generating units are over 25 years old, per the Energy Information Administration.
- More than 42,000 residents on St. Thomas and nearly 4,000 on St. John pay about 33 cents per kilowatt hour, roughly twice the U.S. average of 16 cents, enduring routine outages.
- Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. pledged to fix the utility, with officials planning to install temporary generation and battery storage in upcoming months as renewable energy represents only about 3% of generating capacity.
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources18
Leaning Left5Leaning Right4Center8Last UpdatedBias Distribution47% Center
Bias Distribution
- 47% of the sources are Center
47% Center
L 29%
C 47%
R 24%
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