A primary line of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. tripped off in Garapan, leaving residential and commercial customers in the village, including the Commonwealth Health Center, without power for an hour yesterday afternoon.
CUC spokesperson Rose Ada-Hocog said this was the second emergency power outage in Garapan this past week.
Last Thursday evening, CUC crewmembers also responded to an emergency outage in the same area. CUC received the call about the power interruption at 8:55pm Thursday and was able to restore power at 10:19pm.
Ada-Hocog said that yesterday's power outage was due to an “electrical fault” after a piece of plywood got blown to the CUC primary line, tripping the outage. Areas affected included Garapan, Upper Navy Hill, Lower Chinatown, and Kristo Rai. Saipan Tribune learned that the plywood was from a construction project of a business establishment in Garapan. Construction work was temporarily stopped until further notice.
Ada-Hocog said that CUC received the call about the outage at 1:47pm and restored power at 2:46pm.
CUC acting executive director Alan Fletcher told Saipan Tribune that the plywood affected a three-phase power line that caused CUC's feeder one to trip.
“CUC conferred with local agencies regarding the building site and construction occurring close to power lines. Those agencies are investigating,” added Fletcher.
Ada-Hocog also confirmed that an unscheduled power outage occurred in Talafofo Thursday morning after a tree fell into a CUC primary line.
“We continue to encourage the community members that as soon as their power goes out, please give us a call so we can immediately dispatch our crewmembers and address the problem,” she said.
Because of the bad weather, Ada-Hocog said that CUC may have to respond to more emergency power interruptions.
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