As we told you earlier, NEMO declared the "all-clear" at 9:00 am, and that gave the green light to the utility and cable companies, and the relevant first responder ministries to go into the communities that were in the path of the storm.
For BEL that meant immediately working to restore power to areas with outages and downed power lines.
This evening, BEL Corporate Communications manager Vonetta Burrell, told us that the company has mobilized technicians re-connect communities in the Stann Creek and Toledo Districts. She also provided some practical advice for off-grid customers hoping to get their power back on.
Cherisse Halsall
"Can you give us an update on the power outages in the south, there is backup? What's being done to get everybody back up?"
Vonetta Burrel - Manager, Corporate Communications, BEL
"We're pleased to announce that at the end of today, the areas most hit but the passing hurricane, currently we have a few customers in some communities in Hopkins, Riversdale and Sittee River without. Those customers should be restored by 8 o'clock tonight. Our teams responded very early this morning, they went out to do the assessments, we recognise that we had several fallen poles, fallen power lines. So, the works today included replacement of poles and repairs to power lines and equipment. Most customers are restored and those remain without power we just ask for their patience as we continue work to complete that effort for 8 o'clock tonight. There are communities that require extensive work from our teams to restore power. There are individual customers who may be experiencing outages because of their specific service entrance at their premise. The hurricane caused damages in areas that might not have been widespread but nonetheless, there might be customers without power that we can't pick up on the grid because it might be a single household. We're asking customers in any part of Belize, who might be experiencing an outage at their home or community to please report it to us, so that we can send our teams out and conduct repairs. If it's a case where it's the service entrance, that's the feature that connects to your meter that allows for safe connection to be supplied, that is something that would be on the customers property and it would typically require assistance from a licensed electrician to repair and we know that we're in the midst of a pandemic, several customers are facing some kind of financial hardship and they might have difficulty with getting that assistance, we're asking them to let us know if they don't have power and if they need assistance in that regard and BEL will be working with these customers who may have damaged service entrances to see how best we can assist them with getting a licensed electrician to conduct those repairs."
Since the hurricane made landfall between Dangriga and Placencia, it damaged the infrastructure of the power system in these areas.
