Country-wide Sunday outage caused by technical issue | SOUALIGA NEWSDAY

SINT MAARTEN (PHILIPSBURG) - NV GEBE stated via a company press release that on Sunday January 29^th, 2023, at approximately 4:40 PM, the community of St. Maarten experienced a country-wide total blackout.

The country-wide blackout was caused by a technical issue on one of the company’s production units, which in turn created a cascading effect.

The Engineers and technicians at the Power Plant were able to swiftly identify the cause of the outage and immediately resolved the matter at hand. Ensuing the aforementioned, the restoration process of electricity began shortly after, whereby the outgoing feeders to the island’s critical infrastructures, i.e. the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) and the Princes Juliana International Airport (PJIA) were re-energized within the span of an hour.

N.V. GEBE’s Temporary Manager / Special Representative Mr. Troy Washington, stated that the company’s main goal and objective remains to continue providing the community of St. Maarten with a stable and reliable supply of water and electricity.

Mr. Washington also took the opportunity to thank the staff at the Power Plant for working diligently and relentlessly to restore power to the entire population within a short time-span.

The initial time of the outage was at 4:40 PM, with the final feeder/cable being re-energized at 7:17 PM.