Power fully restored to cayes
Belize Electricity Limited has declared victory in the battle to restore electricity in the wake of Hurricane Keith. In a release today BEL announced that as of November sixteenth, power had been fully restored to the communities of San Pedro and Caye Caulker, two of the most badly hit parts of the country. In San Pedro almost twenty-three hundred families had been left powerless while around five hundred were affected in Caye Caulker. Joseph Sukhnandan, BEL’s vice president for planning and engineering, says that it was the long hours of work by a dedicated staff that made the restoration a success.
Joseph Sukhnandan, V.P. Planning and Engineering
?There was two ways in which we managed to better the schedule. We had a significant amount of help from the New Foundland Power, which is owned by Fortis our parent company. When we saw the extent of the works, we decided to invest a little bit more in hiring special equipment, excavators and so on to put up the poles. We also hired a significant amount of contractors. We also brought in all our guys from all the various districts, Corozal, Punta Gorda, Dangriga, along with our workmen from Belize City. So basically we had all our resources in San Pedro and Caye Caulker, which is why we managed to bring forward the schedule.?
Jacqueline Woods
?Are there any further works that need to be done??
Joseph Sukhnandan
?In Caye Caulker, we have to do some reinforcements. In San Pedro, the feeder to the north of the island was badly damaged. We have repaired it and what has to happen is that we have to go back and reinforce the entire system. We have to reinforce it to such an extent that should the hurricane happen again, the extent of the damage will be significantly less and it will take us a lot less time to bring back. So what we plan to do starting in about January of next year, is that we will have crews go back to both of the islands and also in Belize City and all the coastal areas in Belize. We plan to start reinforcing the distribution system, so that should we get a hurricane of that strength, the damage is going to be a lot less. We are going to change poles, conductors, we are also going to anchor the structures into the ground a lot better and improve the standard of construction.?
BEL estimates hurricane damage to its transmission and distribution system at nine million dollars. Lost revenue amounted to another million, while upgrading and reinforcement of infrastructure in coastal areas cost five point five million.
