Thousands Left in the Dark After Island-wide Blackout

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – It all started just after 10PM Wednesday, after Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) began posting alerts on its WhatsApp channel, saying a problem with a generation unit at the Clifton Pier Power Station had interrupted service to parts of Bay Street, including BTC, and Goldwynn Resort.

Less than an hour later BPL announced that Coral Harbour would also lose power to prevent the system from overloading.

Just a few minutes after that, Fox Hill Road North and surrounding communities were added to the growing list of affected areas.

By 12:28AM Thursday morning, the company said power had been restored to Bay Street, Coral Harbour, and Fox Hill.

However, when they thought they had the situation under control, around 2AM Thursday morning, everything changed, as the entire island went dark.

Thousands of people were woken up by their air conditioners shutting off, while others found themselves lying awake as the summer heat quickly filled their homes.

Meanwhile, as the island sat in darkness, social media quickly filled with frustrated reactions.

One user even asked “second time for the month…what’s going on?,” while another called for the return of Pike.

At 3:55AM Thursday morning, BPL released video from the Blue Hills Power Station, where a fire had broken out.

Just minutes later, the company said its initial investigation pointed to a suspected underground cable fault, which caused a 15-MVA transformer to explode, triggering the island-wide loss of power.

With no restoration time available, crews spent the early morning hours working to rebuild the grid.

By 5:58AM, BPL announced that restoration efforts were underway, with communities being brought back online in stages to protect the system.

Around 6:30AM some homes began getting their power back, and by 7:18AM BPL said approximately 50% of customers had been restored.

Then by 9:28AM, that number had grown to about 75%, which is when BPL’s Director of Planning, Engineering and Facilities, Kevin Gilbert, provided an update on the restoration effort.

Kevin Gilbert – BPL’s Director of Planning, Engineering and Facilities

“ We had a few delays in restoring the system, but we are now moving feverishly in the right direction to restore the system. The system has to come on incrementally, so once we do that, we start to look at various parts of the system that we can bring on…from a safety aspect.”

However, even as crews continued their work, the problems were far from over.

Around 11:22AM Thursday morning, BPL reported new pockets of outages in several communities, reminding customers that while much of the island had been re-energized, the grid was still being stabilized.

For many residents, this wasn’t just about losing electricity.

It was another hot, sleepless night, another morning of scrambling to get ready for work, and for some businesses, another day of disruption.