ST. CROIX — Five schools in the St. Croix District were dismissed early today because of a WAPA power outage affecting the schools, the Department of Education said Thursday afternoon.
Schools affected are the St. Croix Educational Complex, St. Croix Central High School, Claude O. Markoe Elementary School, the Arthur A. Richards K-8 School, and the St. Croix Career and Technical Education Center.
In an alert this morning, WAPA said a line department crew was dispatched to determine the cause of an electrical service interruption to customers on St. Croix Feeder 8B. Approximately 6,700 customers were affected. WAPA said once the cause of the outage was determined, the crew would make repairs and restore service to the affected customers. The feeder fell off line at 9:38 a.m.
WAPA has yet to make known whether power has been restored.
Emergency meeting
Under fire from public officials locally — and now in Washington — WAPA will hold an emergency meeting of its governing board on Thursday to consider repairs to a St. Croix generator unit.
The action item is related to emergency repairs to Unit #17, according to the public posting of the meeting agenda.
Unit #17 is one of five oil-burning generator units that were converted to handle propane gas. The units are 16, 17 and 20 on St. Croix and 15 and 18 on St. Thomas.
“Unit 17” is a familiar piece of equipment, as it has been cited multiple times by WAPA officials as a generator unit that goes off-line, causing thousands of St. Croix customers to lose power.
St. Croix was hit by an hours-long power outage affecting thousands of people on Sunday when the Estate Richmond Power Plant lost the capacity to generate electricity.
On Wednesday, Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett joined the chorus of WAPA critics. She called on Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. and Senate President Novelle Francis to declare an energy State of Emergency in the territory so the federal technical and financial assistance can be accessed.
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