CUC battles with lightning strikes on poles

| 11/08/2014

(CNS): The stormy weather was still keeping CUC engineering crews occupied Monday as engineers battled to deal with more poles struck by lightning this morning. A spokesperson for Grand Cayman's power provider said that by 11am power had been restored to areas around Grand Harbour as well as parts of Shedden Road and Smith Road which were impacted by a lightning strike early Monday morning. Over the weekend crews were dealing with several hits on the West Bay Road, which left some of Cayman's tourist spots without power. The storms damaged equipment and caused outages on both Friday and Saturday.

On Friday 8 August equipment damage to a pole on West Bay road left customers in the area without power between 3:48 pm and 6:15 pm. Then on Saturday 9 August another strike to a pole near Deckers restaurant resulted in the loss of power at 9:45 pm and lines on the road which were repaired by 1:33 am, CUC said.

"CUC’s protection systems operated as they are designed to after the lightning strikes to isolate the area of outage safely until repairs could be performed," a spokesperson explained. "CUC sincerely regrets the inconvenience caused to customers affected by these outages."
 

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Why doesn't DART buy CUC? I'm sure our bill will be lower. Try the water company too. Its a disgrace what we pay for utilities.

    • Anonymous says:

      LOL. Are you really that stupid? Have you checked out the prices at Camana Bay recently? Did the price cinema tickets rise or fall after Dart became the monopolist? I am truly baffled at these people who think that Dart is our saviour. Dart is a hard-nosed businessman, he is not a philanthropist, and he is not going to buy a utility company so he can give the customers lower prices!    

  2. Anonymous says:

    Why does CUC discriminate against Poles?? Hell, we got plenty of every nation to strike against..

  3. Anonymous says:

    That would be another surcharge on our monthly bill. #facepalm

  4. Anonymous says:

    CIG should have buried all the power lines after Ivan, amortizing the fixed asset expense over 50 years (insstead of 3), and then leased transmission capacity to CUC, like any other modern government municipality.  It would have lowered consumer fixed-asset amortization burden, eliminating need for the "post-Ivan recovery surcharge" we all paid, and the qualityof delivery issues we face from lightning, salt, and wind would have eliminated.  A big opportunity was wasted to keep the Lodge mentality alive, and our bills continue to bankroll the inefficiencies.

    • Anonymous says:

      Nice pipe dream, but do you really think CUC would be footing the bill for burying transmission lines? Instead of paying a Hurricane Recovery Surcharge we'd all be paying another larger surcharge for the next 20 years. Not to mention frequent water and data outages resulting from trenching works.

      • Anonymous says:

        CUC would have paid their lease to CIG to offset the financed infrastructure and consumers would have footed a much diminished bill than the one they already paid (with a baked-in 30% profit margin).  Anyway…not going to happen at this juncture – we'll just keep paying to service vulnerable 1950's grid technology and remain mute on the topic.  

    • Anonymous says:

      And planning should require all new developments, including roads, to have in ground utilities.

      • Anonymous says:

        And pigs will fly, 7:19. Planning doesn't even stop the erection of illegal structures in people's yards or require proper road access, far less put utilities underground. Not unless you are living in the rich people's gated communities where they get everything they want.

      • Anonymous says:

        The NRA / Govt pays almost KYD1million annually for CUC electricity lighting, usually along public roads, etc. But included in this is CUC electricity lighting in private developments where the roads or properties are privately owned. Why should the public have to pay for private CUC bills?

    • Anonymous says:

      I agree 100percent.

       

      Look how ugly the new bypass into west bay looks with all those utility poles. That was the perfect opportunity to bury the lines to ensure increased connectivity. But having the poles justifies their capital expenditure for machinery and humans, which we pay for plus a profit margin.

      • Anonymous says:

        "But having the poles justifies their capital expenditure for machinery and humans which we pay for plus a profit margin".  The second part i agree with in that a portion of rates reflect CUC's capital investments. The first part i disagree with as the undergrounding of the lines would cost  a lot more than the poles and overhead lines so we would pay more in rates.

        • Anonymous says:

          Cant be that expensive, we have water lines in the ground dont we, and what are the rates we pay for that? CUC just needs to buy the machinery to place the lines inthe ground instead of hiring it – which would be a rip off!

           

          Water Authority is not as labour intensive or machinery intensive as CUC. Why is that? Yes, they both have big utility generation plants but thats a given.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Tall metal poles = lightning strikes.

    • Anonymous says:

      …and (unfortunately) deadly and unnecessary car accidents.

      • Anonymous says:

        Coz the poles leap out and attack the cars, right? Nothing to do with the drivers.