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.
AmbergrisCaye.com 
