B.E.L. sends crew to help Bermuda
The nations of the Caribbean may not always make much progress in their efforts at political unity and economic integration…but when it comes to pulling together in times of trouble there are few who do it better. For the island of Bermuda that means help from as far away as Belize.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This afternoon, seven employees of Belize Electricity Limited left the country, bound for hurricane ravaged island of Bermuda.
The team will arrive tomorrow and immediately begin to restore electricity to more than twenty-five thousand homes that have been in the dark since Hurricane Fabian, packing winds of one hundred and twenty miles an hour, made landfall late Friday evening.
Anthony Staine, B.E.L. Line Supervisor
“We are looking at falling structures, damages to the lines, power transformers etcetera…Our number one priority is safety. With the team I am taking, we do have an experience of safety, and also, a set of personnel, who basically is productive when it comes to restoration at this time.”
The team’s assistance to Bermuda is the result of B.E.L.’s membership in the Caribbean Association of Electric Utilities (CARILEC), and its Hurricane Action Plan. Belize has benefited from this crucial relationship twice: in 1999 after Hurricane Keith hit the northern cayes, and then in 2001 after Hurricane Iris cut a swath of destruction from the Placencia peninsula to Monkey River and points west.
Anthony Staine
“We do have all the companies in the Caribbean who basically get together and they have a main head that heads this power community and we are asked also if we have a restoration, which we did for Hurricane Keith and Iris, we had a team from Newfoundland for Hurricane Keith, and we had a team from C.B.C., which is Barbados, also assist us in the restoration in Placencia at that time.”
The B.E.L. team will spend approximately three weeks in Bermuda working with crews from other Caribbean countries to get things on the ground back to normal…a mission the linesmen take very seriously.
Anthony Staine
“As a team from Belize Electricity Limited we are ready, we are fit. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been through it. We had assistance from other countries before, so we know what it is working with our counterparts and being ambassadors of our company and our country. We are basically looking to go forward to do the best to our ability to make it safe.”
The other countries sending crews to Bermuda include Barbados, Jamaica, Dominica, Bahamas and Cayman Islands. B.E.L.’s Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Young, is the current chairman of CARILEC.
