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Isolated blackouts persist yesterday
Power was back up on over 90 percent of Saipan, according to the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., but isolated pockets of blackouts still persist.
CUC continued to work on these outages across the island throughout last night, according to CUC executive director Alan Fletcher in an interview late yesterday.
Most of these areas were left powerless due to blown transformers or trees, after Tropical Storm Bavi hit the islands over the weekend.
Fletcher said that felled trees took out power lines in these areas. Yesterday, CUC continued the “slow, grinding work” that needed to be done for these “back wood vegetated areas” hit hard by the storm, he said.
He noted that CUC shifted crew from its water and wastewater division to aid their power division.
The blown transformers on Navy Hill would take longer to replace, he indicated. He could not give an estimate on when.
As for the isolated areas, he said, “We are hoping to get a majority of these done by late [last night],” he said.
The last partial of their feeders that went up was for the Kagman area. This came up around 2am yesterday, Fletcher said.
He said are going lateral power line-by-lateral power line to fix power outages.
Fletcher thanked the public for being patient and said he understand the frustration of those who are still without power, noting that their crews are out “tirelessly” working.
