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Power outages hit Saipan
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Posted on Sep 12 2000
Early morning storms hit Saipan yesterday with the boom of thunder and the bang of bloan electrical-transformers.
When the heavy rains and lightning passed over the island, a series of minor power outages were reported from Chalan Kiya to As Lito, over Capitol Hill to Kagman, and through the northern section of Saipan.
According to the spokesperson for the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, Pamela Mathis, linemen cleared the electrical lines and quickly restored electricity by about 9:15 Sunday morning.
As soon as the electricity started flowing again, customers started calling the utility to complain about bloan transformers.
“This is common during heavy rainstorms. Heavy winds blow rain inside the transformers. Water doesn’t mix with the oil and high voltage once the power comes back on,” said Ms. Mathis.
“That’s why I tried to explain during last week’s typhoon that electricity is never stable after storms. Even though we turn on the power, we run into additional problems after the electricity flows through the system,” she added.
Although crews were quick to restore power, they remained on the job all day and into the night replacing bloan transformers. By 8:00 p.m., nearly 13 hours after electricity was already restored and the skies were calm, linemen were still working on Navy Hill and Mt. Topachau.
“It’s takes a couple of crews to replace transformers. We need special equipment just to lift the transformer to the power pole, then men climb in the high rangers to connect the new transformer to all of the residents or businesses that receive power from that source,” Mathis explained. “We had several people working in our warehouse all day, well into the night,” she said.
The utility has a lot of transformers in stock for the typhoon season, with more on the way, according to Ms. Mathis.
