Fire on CUC pole caused Friday night outage

(CNS): A motor vehicle accident was the start of CUC power outages for a number of customers east of George Town on 22 October, the company has confirmed. At around 2:00 on Friday afternoon a dump truck damaged power lines near Red Bay Primary School, causing loss of power to one circuit feeding the Crewe Road, Grand Harbour and Red Bay areas. Customers were switched to a second circuit, but then at around 3:20pm an equipment fire in the Selkirk Drive area on that second circuit caused further outages for customers in Prospect, Savannah and Spotts Newlands. (Photo by Dennie Warren Jr)

CUC explained that the circuit damaged by the dump truck was initially restored to most customers within an hour by switching them over to the second circuit.  However, a fault occurred on the second circuit, which resulted in an equipment fire in the Selkirk Drive area, and then the subsequent outage to the customers initially affected by the motor vehicle accident and additional customers in the Prospect, Savannah and Spotts Newlands areas.

Fire crews immediately responded and extinguished the fire. Following repairs to the damaged equipment in the Selkirk Drive area and the power lines damaged by the dump truck, power was gradually restored to all customers by 7:00 pm Friday evening.

CUC said that its restoration teams worked to restore the power as quickly as possible and in a safe and efficient manner to all customers. There were no injuries as a result of the motor vehicle accident or the restoration process and the power firm apologised for the inconvenience the outages may have caused.