UPDATE from CUC Sept 9th 2013

Outage Report for September 7th and 8th 2013

A motor vehicle accident, adverse weather conditions, and lightning resulted in just over 10,000 customers in various parts of Grand Cayman losing power for varying periods over this past weekend.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 7th, a car knocked down a CUC pole along Linford Pierson Highway. The accident took a main transmission line and two distribution circuits out of service affecting customers in South Sound and all areas east through Prospect Bodden Town, East End and North Side. Customers experienced service interruption of varying durations from 1:21 am to 5:37 am. The impact due to the loss of the transmission circuit was more severe than normal as the alternate routing of power through the Rum Point submarine cable was not available as maintenance work was being conducted in the Rum Point Substation.

CUC personnel responded to restore power to all areas through the submarine cable while the replacement of the pole and equipment at the scene of the accident was carried out. Crews worked throughout the early morning hours and into the afternoon on Saturday when repairs were completed at 1:30pm.

On Sunday, September 8th, two distribution circuits out of the South Sound substation serving parts of South Sound, Walkers Road and Crewe Road were out for approximately one hour due to lightning strikes. Crews made the necessary inspection and repairs to restore the power in a safe and efficient manner. Also, there were smaller outages due to lightning strikes that damaged distribution transformer equipment in West Bay and Bodden Town.

From RCIPS Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 3:19 PM

On Saturday, 07th September 2013 at about 1:45 AM a 31-year-old male was travelling East, apparently at a high rate of speed, on Linford Pierson Highway unaccompanied. He was driving a Ford Edge motor car. On reaching in the vicinity of Rankin Drive, the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and ran off the Highway on the left side and collided with a utility pole breaking it off in two pieces.

As a result of the collision, two utility poles caught fire, including the one the vehicle collided with, followed by two loud transformer explosions.

RCIPS, Fire Department and CUC personnel attended the scene.  The fire Department crew extinguished the fire.

The driver of the Ford Edge was arrested at the scene by an officer of the RCIPS on suspicion of DUI and dangerous driving. He was transported to the GT Hospital where he was examined by a doctor and later discharged without any serious injuries; he is currently on police bail. The Ford Edge received extensive damages as a result of the crash.

As a result of the crash, utility power was off for several hours from South Sound Sub-station to the eastern districts.

The investigating officer, PC 357 Watts is appealing to anyone who witnessed the crash to contact him at 949-4222.