W. Highway residents still suffer blackouts
We thought that with the onset of the rainy season and the solving of problems in Mexico, Belize’s supply and distribution of energy was back on track. Perhaps it is…but not for everyone. Today News 5’s Jacqueline Woods headed up the Western Highway to observe life on the infamous feeder number eight.
Juanita Avilez, Resident, Sunset Park
“We have blackouts almost everyday. We had blackout yesterday during the day and again last night up to this morning. And we worry about it a lot because we worry about our appliances like for example microwave, refrigerator, the TV.”
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Although most of the country has been enjoying uninterrupted twenty-four electricity since the countrywide outage crisis almost one month ago, a number of residents living between Sunset Park and Hattieville on the Western Highway are still whistling in the dark. Juanita Avilez, who lives at mile eight and a half, says she has had to throw away food because of the outages.
Juanita Avilez
“You know as we are working and we have to buy the things the way how we get pay, a weekly grocery, you know a fifteenth and ending grocery, and then we have to preserve our meat and vegetables because we noh have shop to go to the shop everyday and buy it one, one, so we usually buy it by stock. And when the current go off like that, the meat they come in a plate and it still gave a little bit of the chicken blood in deh. So when it go off for that long, it lets the meat spoil and we end up di lose, because we live on a small salary and when we have to get the amount of the grocery, you have to end up the throw away the vegetables and boil the meat for the dog because it spoil, we lose.”
Avilez says she has had to buy iceboxes to help preserve her groceries. Further up the highway the residents say the situation gets even more frustrating because they cannot sleep at night because of the heat and flies.
Eleanor Robateau, Resident, Mile Ten, Western Highway
“Like especially at night because we no have no fan, we can’t use the fan and you can’t open the windows because too much mosquitoes. And then you have small children and you have to stay the sweat, sweat because you have no breeze, you can’t breathe good.”
Jacqueline Woods
“Have you had problems with your appliances?”
Eleanor Robateau
“Well right now the VCR can’t work, but I noh know if dah due to that.”
Senator Godwin Hulse, a prominent resident of the area, says the situation takes him back to the time when he first moved to the location and there were no utility services available.
Godwin Hulse, Resident, 10 1/2 mile, Western Highway
“We get the worst end of the deal. Last night for example we did not have no power from about seven o’clock and I had a talk show on KREM and when I came back, power I understand had come on and gone off again. So when I came back it was dark, but all the way up to mile eight had light, so it seem as though we get the chop going up to Hattieville and everybody else have some power. I figure perhaps they can do a bypass line, a brief, short bypass line with a switch to give us some power.”
“The initial explanation was the dust on the insulators we understood that, the shortage from Mexico, we understood that, Chalillo without water, we understood that, the bush fires. But the rest of the country seem to have power and we still don’t have.”
The residents say as much as they would like to have electricity restored in the area, for the moment they would appreciate if B.E.L. would simply inform them at what times there will be blackout. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.
This evening, B.E.L.’s Corporate Communications Manager, Neville Samuels, informed us that the outages are as a result of various problems they have been experiencing with feeder eight that serves the area. According to Samuels, Wednesday’s power failure was caused by broken insulators on the distribution line and it affected residents living from mile eight to eighteen, including Tropical Garden, Hattieville and Freetown Sibun. Samuels says Feeder eight is approximately thirty years old and they will be working to modernise the line and improve service to the area. When asked if residents can expect more blackouts, Samuels says they have a team working in the area and if there should be any planned outages, B.E.L. will inform the affected residents.
