Power restoration 75 percent complete
At least 75 percent of the island has been connected to the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. power distribution system as of yesterday afternoon, CUC said.
Pamela Mathis, CUC special adviser for corporate communications, said power restoration efforts are expected to speed up as soon as help from Guam arrives this week.
The Guam Power Authority has agreed to send 14 of its personnel to assist their local counterparts in replacing down power poles and fixing other electrical problems.
Mathis said GPA is returning the favor to CUC, which had extended the same assistance when Supertyphoon Pongsona devastated Guam in December 2002.
The additional manpower from Guam will make up three teams, and will help bring back power to some isolated areas or houses that still don’t have power due to down power poles and lines, among other things. Two of these teams will go to Rota, while the other one will work with the CUC staff on Saipan.
“We got a lot of primary lines done by [Monday] midnight, or at least those primary lines that did not have power poles down or significant transformer problem. We finished a large portion of difficult or technical problems [Tuesday],” Mathis said.
She said a total of 27 power poles went down during the typhoon, while tree branches were caught in numerous power lines. But transformers that have blown are taking a lot of time and effort to resolve. In some instances, Mathis said, transformers blow out after everything has been restored and energized, requiring CUC personnel to go back and work on the equipment all over again.
CUC is simultaneously focused on getting the water wells operable. “We are doing it strategically, to make sure that water is distributed equally to different parts of the island, so people may not have water everyday, or the pressure is not as strong as you’re used to,” Mathis said.
