CAY BAY-During a routine inspection round on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at the Cay Bay Power Plant in, a vigilant GEBE technician detected a water leak in one of the main power production units. He immediately notified his superiors and the decision was taken to stop the generator as a precautionary safety measure. This lead to limited load-shedding because some other units were undergoing planned maintenance at the time. Some of the areas affected were Lowlands, Beacon Hill, Dutch Quarter, and Simpson Bay.
Due to the severity of the problem, a tentative load shedding schedule for the rest of the day was disseminated to the media to prepare residents for short outages. However, because the technician had detected the problem before it escalated, the mechanical team was able to solve the problem much faster than had originally been anticipated. While some areas experienced short power interruptions other areas such as Pelican and Lowlands were without power for almost 2 hours. Electricity supply to all affected areas was restored by 12:30 p.m.
GEBE apologizes to its customers who experienced power interruptions.
Suspension of Turks and Caicos Constitution is not new in the region.
