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WAPA Struggles to Restore Power Following Cascade of Electrical Failures

Water and Power officials are blaming an issue with one of the utility’s propane pumps for triggering a cascade of events that resulted in the loss of electricity across St. Croix for the majority of Monday. Children who turned up for the first school day of the year were sent home early, while businesses lacking backup generators had to close. The disruption even affected the government's ability to function, forcing the closure of some agencies including the Division of Personnel, and the postponement of the executive branch’s first press briefing of 2024. WAPA’s initial public announcement was light on details, only acknowledging the “major electrical service interruption” following the “loss of generation capacity at the Estate Richmond Power Plant.”  However, Consortium journalists understand that the faulty propane pump caused the first outage at 5:00 a.m., with a failed power restoration effort causing another system crash around 8:00 a.m. One of the transformers was found to...