WAPA Reports Full Power Restoration in St. Thomas-St. John District

As of 6 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Water and Power Authority reported that electricity in St. Thomas and St. John has been completely restored after a district-wide power outage over the weekend.  The outage, which began on Saturday evening, was caused by an ailing generator which destabilized the entire Randolph Harley power plant on St. Thomas,  said WAPA CEO Karl Knight. Attempts to restart using the remaining generators at the plant failed, and a subsequent recovery  on Sunday using the same troubled Unit 27 generator proved fragile when the engine went down again in the wee hours of Monday morning. During a press conference on Monday, Mr. Knight dispelled rumors that a fuel shortage was behind the outage, saying that mechanical failure was the only reason for the grid collapse.  With major disruptions in government and private sector operations caused by the outage, residents on the two islands monitored restoration efforts as crews worked to bring feeders online one by one throu...