USVI-On-Line

Good morning, all! Curious about your experiences with power outages?

In our past eight trips, we've experienced about three minor power outages combined, but on this trip we've had four outages in three days, with one of them being over 4 hours!

What has your experience been? Is this closer to normal and we've just been lucky up till now?

Do any island residents have insight?

Thanks!

(Edited to add that we're having a fabulous time; just hoping we don't have outages every night for the whole trip

We must get lucky because I can only remember losing power once in 15 or so trips over nearly 20 years. It was during Super Bowl 2014 and we were at Motu. My son still talks about it, it made quite an impression on him.

6 TRIPS, NO OUTAGES. KNOCK ON WOOD..................

None for us, but we've only been twice... I'll be there this year in Aug. and will have to take note... Id rather have one there then here.

Two trips - one outage that lasted a few hours (Grande Bay was not impacted). Cable TV at local bars can be spotty at times...

6 trips; the only outages I can remember were on our recent trip (just returned) Saturday night and Sunday morning. Saturday night was lovely, except that it happened in the middle of the Michigan State / Duke game so my 16 y.o. DS was not happy. Also the neighbors had an annoying loud generator that luckily conked out after awhile. After that it was quiet and dark, with beautiful moonlight over Coral Harbor. I actually really enjoyed it!

Sunday morning it was on long enough to charge our phones and make coffee. It went out again but it was bright and sunny so we really didn't miss it, although the water pressure was nil. We were just packing up anyway.

It really doesn't happen that often. I think the last time we had this many outages in such a short period of time was last summer. Apparently there was an equipment failure on St. Thomas. That stressed the other equipment and then knocked that offline. So what's happening now is rolling outages where WAPA is shutting off certain feeders for short time periods while it "fixes" the problem.

Yes, it stinks. St. John is obviously paradise but it's no fun to not have any running water, a fan, etc. But again, it's paradise so we simply smile and head to the beach.

Random fact: We had an outage the night before Easter last year. An overtime opportunity perhaps?? lol

As a longtime VI resident on STT, where the STJ power is supplied from, outages are not abnormal. Our power plant is aging and overstressed. In STJ the consumption demands are constantly increasing, especially with the number of villas being built with amenities dependent on electrical power.
Local residents are always prepared with anything from full generator systems at the top end of preparation to flashlights, oil lamps and candles at the least.
If you are living here - missing cable TV programs or even special events, think Super Bowl or last nights Championship game, is not an unexpected occurrence and in fact seem compulsory. Last night I had to leave my house and go down to a local bar with satellite reception and a generator to watch the 1st half of the game and even that was spotty because the satellite has to use a local source for Network TV channels and locally CBS was down from no current.

The water pressure issue mentioned should have been obvious since the water supply in the house is from the cistern and needs a pump to operate.

An old thread in this forum is still worth reading for many of the newer visitors.

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... SP46PCrES4

The local Water and Power Authority issued this summation:

http://stthomassource.com/content/news/ ... s-rotation
Rotating outages have been a constant fact of life here for my entire 40 years and are now considered NORMAL.

It happens as often as not, and the further you are from St. Thomas the more likely. We always bring flashlights with us and just get on with things should the power go out. We were on STT in Havensight at the Dog House Pub when the power went out Saturday. The generator was on and the game back on in a couple of minutes.

Cheers, RickG

And it can happen anywhere!!

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/07/polit ... ington-dc/

We lost power on and off for a few days last August during and after TS Bertha. It was to be expected after the storm. No big deal except I could not get a smoothie from Columbo's.

If you are renting a villa or cottage and are concerned about power outages, ask if they have solar power. Many do have solar as a back up system.

Our system gives a split second light flicker and switches to battery power. Most of the time we don't even notice that WAPA is out until people start posting on Facebook.

Been there 8 trips. Never had a power outage until the 2014 Super Bowl outage. We were at Virgin Fire for their Super Bowl Party. Mongoose has generator so it didn't impact us too much. When we were visiting this Feb we had another outage. Hmm, our other trips were in May/June and we never had a power outage. Only in Feb. What's up with that?

Thanks for the input, all!

We're pretty laid back and really don't mind the enforced peace and quiet that the outages bring! we were mainly just wondering if we could expect it every single night, since this has been much more frequent than we've experienced in the past.

Really appreciate all of the info!

If you are asking about the current STT STJ power situation - I would expect that the ongoing problem will persist and expect outages at anytime and be prepared for it as best you can.