PHILIPSBURG--The loss of “control air pressure” on one of the engines at the power plant of Utilities Company GEBE caused a domino effect resulting in a country wide power outage around 1:40pm on Wednesday.
Within half an hour GEBE’s Belair cable which feeds the Cay Hill area where St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) is located was restored. Power was gradually restored to other areas around the island during the course of the afternoon.
The power went off again shortly after it had been restored in some districts, but by 5:20pm all districts were fully restored.
Shortly before 8:00pm, a second outage gripped some areas. GEBE’s media relations representative Paula Gordon said last night that the evening outage was the result of an “issue” with one of the company’s smaller engines, which caused a larger engine to “trip.” The company’s operators and engineers were busy mid-evening Wednesday reenergising cables to restore power to the affected areas.
