CHRISTIANSTED — Hundreds of Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority lost electricity for hours on St. Croix after a garden-variety summer thunderstorm shut down the government-run utility two times in four hours.
Karl Knight, the CEO of WAPA, scheduled a chat with a local PBS television station this morning but declined to make time to describe in detail the cause of these latest blackouts on the Big Island this evening.
“Line crew determined lightning as the cause of outage to Feeder 8B,” WAPA said on Facebook at 6:45 p.m. “Power is now restored. Thank you for your patience.”
Then the electricity restored to Feeder 8B went out again at 8:45 p.m. with no plausible explanation from WAPA.
Meanwhile, blackouts and random disconnections continue to plague WAPA customers on all three islands.
And the embattled utility still has not explained why a 100-year-old St. Thomas man, Alfred J. Williams, was recently left without power for more than six hours.
In the meantime, a lawsuit filed in 2021 that claims WAPA is using a faulty automated billing system has been winding its way through District Court.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Terri Griffiths, said in a recent filing that the problems are causing particular harm to elderly residents.
In addition, WAPA feeders on St. Thomas and St. John went off without warning Monday afternoon, leaving thousands of customers without grid electricity for hours on another hot summer day.
After the blackouts began, WAPA issued a statement that work was being done on the new Wartsila generators, causing some feeders to be abruptly taken offline. WAPA spokeswoman Shanell Petersen said Monday the work is expected to continue for the next four months, but that advance notice of the blackouts is not possible.
Generating Unit 15 also failed Monday evening, necessitating yet another series of rolling blackouts because the power plant cannot create enough electricity to meet demand.
Still, none of those issues explain why Williams, a resident at Lucinda Millin Home, had his electricity abruptly cut off at 2:14 p.m. on July 23, leaving him stuck sitting upright in a hot, dark room.
Power was restored at 8:50 p.m., but only after a reporter contacted WAPA, and after hours of pleading by his daughter, Paulette Wade. Williams was finally able to recline his electric bed and lie down.
Additional inquiries about the situation were sent to Petersen, who finally responded Monday, but sidestepped questions about why Williams had his power cut off.
“To minimize future incidents, WAPA is undertaking the following initiatives,” Petersen said in a statement, including “launching an outreach campaign to raise awareness about the necessity of submitting a medical certificate file for eligible elderly customers,” which “provides additional time to cure a delinquent amount.”
Wade said Monday she has never heard of a “medical certificate,” and had not submitted one for her father because she didn’t know such a thing was available.
Even if she had, Wade said she was told that her father’s power was disconnected in error, not because of any payment delays, so it’s unclear how a medical certificate would have prevented the situation that unfolded on July 23.
Last week, in response to questions from reporters, Virgin Islands Department of Human Services spokesman Ryan Nugent said via statement that “Mr. Williams was mistakenly placed on the disconnection list by a clerk at WAPA. This was an error on WAPA’s part, and they have acknowledged the mistake. Ms. Charisse Burroughs, Customer Service Supervisor at WAPA, confirmed this.”
Wade said her father’s bill was paid, and Burroughs also called her on Wednesday and apologized that his power “was mistakenly disconnected in error.”
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY: WAPA mentions that Feeder 5A went down on St. Croix Wednesday night, but doesn’t mention that Feeder 8B also went down … again.
When asked about those statements, “I can’t confirm that’s accurate,” Petersen said Monday, but she acknowledged that “it is not an isolated issue.”
Petersen said there are about 3,000 to 4,000 customer disconnections every month, “and human error can cause a disconnection, but specific to this person I cannot say whether that is the case.”
Williams is enrolled in the Emergency Crisis Assistance Program, or ECAP, and Petersen said those customers are not disconnected if there are delays in assistance payments — but could be disconnected if the customer’s portion of their WAPA bill had not been paid.
When asked if Williams was disconnected due to a payment issue, “specific to this customer, I can’t give you that information,” Petersen said. “It’s personal information on a particular customer and that would be possibly privacy issues.”
In a subsequent written statement Monday, Petersen wrote WAPA “deeply regrets the recent disconnection of one of our elderly account holders. Although reconnection was executed, the Authority is aware of the above normal temperatures and related risks this summer.”
WAPA is “collaborating with the Virgin Islands Housing Authority and the Department of Human Services to educate customers with life-threatening medical needs about the importance of submitting a medical certificate to the Authority,” and will be “launching an outreach campaign to raise awareness about the necessity of submitting a medical certificate file for eligible elderly customers,” according to the statement.
Petersen did not respond to followup questions from reporters, and it’s unclear if the “medical certificate” is a new program. There is no mention of the certificate on WAPA’s website, and it is not listed among the online forms.
It’s unclear why elderly and disabled residents of public housing would need to submit such a certificate in the first place, but it appears WAPA is still gathering information about where its most vulnerable customers live.
Petersen said in Monday’s statement that WAPA is “Compiling a list of senior group homes and residences that serve the elderly and people with disabilities,” and will be “Conducting face-to-face outreach with elderly customers and their representatives to promote providing the medical certificate that provides additional time to cure a delinquent amount. The medical certificate file is an indicator feature that prevents immediate disconnections for nonpayment of utility bills.”
WAPA is also, “rolling out a territory-wide campaign to educate all customers on the importance of a medical certificate file for individuals in their care,” according to the statement.
Petersen did not respond to questions from The Daily News about widespread complaints on social media of irregular, excessive billing and random disconnections.
WAPA has long been causing suffering for elderly and vulnerable residents, particularly those who rely on electricity to power medical devices.
A recent filing by Griffiths on behalf of plaintiffs in a lawsuit pending since 2021 details some of those concerns.
The plaintiffs are accusing WAPA of using a faulty automated metering system, which has resulted in overbilling, and Griffiths, a former V.I. attorney general, is asking the District Court to lift an order to stay the proceedings, citing complaints by elderly WAPA customers that they were being overcharged amid the ongoing blackouts.
One 83-year-old woman called Griffiths with her concerns and died “the following night,” according to the filing.
“Something is really wrong when the last 48-hours of her life, an 83-year-old woman is distressed over her WAPA bills. More senior citizens called the following Friday. They, too, explained that their bills continue to rise despite installed solar systems, power outages and 20-day billing cycles,” Griffiths said in court documents.
In response to questions from Senate Majority Leader Kenneth Gittens during a budget hearing on Friday before the Senate Finance Committee, interim Luis Hospital CEO Hazel Philbert acknowledged that the outages “have a negative impact on our equipment.”
Senate President Novelle Francis Jr. returned to the subject several moments later, and Philbert said that hospital equipment had not been damaged because the equipment used at JFL North is brand new.
“However, downstream that could actually occur,” she said.
WAPA issues also impact the hospital’s water supply.
“We have an issue where whenever WAPA goes out — since they provide the pressure for all the water at the hospital — we experience low water pressure issues,” Philbert said. The hospital can turn to a water truck to provide immediately relief, Philbert said, and Luis is currently engaged with a contractor to implement a “pump skid” so that the hospital will be able to maintain its own water pressure.
Government House Communications Director Richard Motta Jr. announced Monday that Finance Commissioner Kevin McCurdy will assume the role of incident commander as the territory remains in a state of emergency over WAPA. That role was initially held by former Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal, who resigned amid a federal investigation into government contracts.
Kevin Williams Sr., who took over as Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s chief of staff following Karl Knight’s appointment to lead WAPA, told The Daily News on Monday that the incident command is meeting about every three days to discuss operations and planning.
The task force is also focused on making sure that the utility has enough water and fuel as the 2024 hurricane season continues apace.
“So that’s still a concern that we try to monitor and make sure that WAPA doesn’t run into trouble,” he said, adding that the incident command’s purpose is making sure WAPA doesn’t get “off kilter” as it navigates financial and maintenance issues and monitoring the utility’s capital projects.
Further, the government is “tracking some good news” including getting Wartsila back on the job.
“They have already worked on the batteries — we expect those to come online first,” he said, projecting less than 30 days. “So there’ll be some relief that way.”
The V.I. Daily News contributed to this report.