John McCarthy
FREDERIKSTED — Some 5, 241 WAPA customers living on St. Croix woke up to a home without electricity on Christmas morning.
The Virgin Islands Water & Power Authority heaped praise on its linemen for merely showing up to work during an emergency.
“Thank you to our linemen who are out there in the field away from their families this morning identifying the cause of the outage on Feeder 8B on St. Croix,” WAPA said on Facebook.
Feeder 8B is one of the larger distribution lines on St. Croix, primarily serving the western and central portions of the island from the Sunny Isle Shopping Center to Frederiksted Town.
Key neighborhoods and landmarks on this feeder include:
- Estate La Reine and Sion Farm
- Sunny Isles and Sunny Acres
- Strawberry and Strawberry Hill
- Rattan and Sion Hill
- Peppertree Terrace
WAPA has up to 25,000 electricity and water customers on St. Croix.
On St. Croix, the customer base for WAPA is heavily skewed towards electrical service, as the majority of residents use private cisterns for their water needs rather than the municipal supply.
Based on current data, the breakdown is as follows:
WAPA customer breakdown on St. Croix
| Service Type | Approximate Customers | Percentage of Island Base |
| Electricity | ~24,500 | ~95% – 98% of households |
| Potable Water | ~6,500 | ~25% of households |
