N.V. Elmar has been faced with not one, not two, but three consecutive outages in the last 24 hours. It’s evident that the national electricity distribution company doesn’t have its network under control and can hardly guarantee the community a reliable supply anymore. It remains up to the Government of Aruba, as owner of Utilities Aruba NV, to decide how much longer we will put up with this, before the public takes matters into their own hands, politically!
The first incident occurred at 12:12 AM in the Jan Flemming neighborhood. This is where a utility pole suddenly caught fire. It should be noted that environmental conditions play a role in such incidents. “Saltpeter on the distribution line and moisture from the rain caused the pole to combust.” Elmar technicians acted quickly, and by 12:54 AM, they resolved the issue and restored power to the affected areas.
The second power outage occurred at 4:09 AM and affected areas from Savaneta to Noord. Two substations of Elmar were affected by this outage. WEB reported that this outage originated with them, and after about 45 minutes, WEB resolved the issue and was able to supply power back to Elmar, restoring power to all affected areas.
The third incident occurred at 5:05 AM and affected areas from Seroe Pita to Tamarijn and other nearby neighborhoods. Elmar technicians also quickly arrived to start the necessary investigation into the cause. By 5:30 AM, Elmar technicians identified the problem, restoring power to the affected areas. Meanwhile, they proceeded with repair work in the directly affected area.
N.V. Elmar apologizes, once again, for the inconvenience caused and continues to work on maintaining Aruba’s grid in good and stable condition, even though in this last month they have shown little success in that regard!
