A total shutdown occurred at GEBE’s Power Plant at 2:28 pm, which caused an island wide outage. The origin of the failure was a high tension switch (Magnafix installation), which resulted in a small fire that was put out by attentive plant personnel. Their quick action averted a larger problem.
The high tension switch gear was isolated, and current rerouted to other sections of the plant in order to restore electricity supply faster.
The first areas (St. Maarten Medical Center, Belair and surrounding areas) were back online by 3:30 pm, followed by Philipsburg. We expect power to all areas to be restored by tentatively by 5:30 pm.
GEBE apologizes for any inconvenience caused by this equipment failure.
Management Board of GEBE