Despite best efforts of GEBE technicians during the pas t several days, due to a change in the wind direction on Thursday, an excessive amount of seaweed and sand entered the seawater intake cooling system in Cay Bay forcing all but two generators to shut down knocking out electricity to 60 per cent of the island for approximately five hours.
The two new generators which are radiator cooled were able to supply 40 per cent of the island.
It took technicians almost five hours to clean the filters and other pieces of equipment of sand and seaweed.
Once sand and seaweed entered the filters, the generators started to overheat and the emergency shutdown systems were activated thereby shutting the engines down to protect them from serious damage.
The Meteorological Service of the Netherlands Antilles & Aruba in its 5.00pm Thursday advisory stated that winds were South to Southwest of 12 to 22 miles per hour mainly in or near heavy showers to near gale or even gale force of 40 miles per hour. Waves were five to eight feet or higher during heavy showers or thunderstorms.