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Power outage hits Navy Hill, Garapan areas
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Posted on Sep 20 2005
A power outage hit some Saipan villages after a transformer burned out at Lower Navy Hill on Monday evening.
The blackout started at 8:44pm and lasted until 9:48pm, affecting the Commonwealth Health Center, Garapan Elementary School, Kristo Rai Church, Puerto Rico, Sadog Tasi, Navy Hill, Garapan, and China Town.
But Pamela A. Mathis, corporate communications adviser for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., maintained that the hour-long power outage did not result from any problems at the power plants.
“A transformer burned out at the Lower Navy Hill area. It had nothing to do with the power plant or it was not a result of any load shedding,” Mathis said.
She added that services at the Commonwealth’s hospital were not disrupted, as CHC had a backup power generator.
“We normally inform them of a power outage if we know there is going to be one beforehand. But for emergency cases like this, they have a backup generator,” she said.
CUC has been under the control of the Babauta administration since May 19, 2005 due to various reasons.
In his latest extension of the CUC state of emergency declaration, Gov. Juan N. Babauta said the utility continued to lack reserve power generation capacity.
The governor said that, although Engine No. 8 was back in full operation, Engine Nos. 3 and 4 at Power Plant 1 were still offline and undergoing emergency repairs.
“This declaration of a state of disaster emergency is made after finding that the recommendations and justifications that existed for the declaration…on Aug. 17, 2005 remain in existence and that emergency measures must remain in place in order to ensure the safety of the people of the CNMI,” Babauta said in his Sept. 16, 2005 memorandum.
“As such, I find that the threat or danger to the CNMI caused by the lack of ‘backup’ or reserve power generation capacity; the continued need to initiate critical maintenance and repair of power generation facilities; and the uncertain financial condition of CUC and its ability to make all required fuel payments due to increased fuel costs, mandate the issuance of this State of Disaster Emergency Declaration,” he added.
