Belize City residents are recovering tonight from a marathon 12 hour city wide blackout - and it may be the longest power outage in decades, causing major inconvenience, closure of businesses, losses of revenue, and general annoyance across the city.
The power outage started at 12:30 am and power was not fully restored until after midday.
BEL says the outage was caused by a transmission line fault outside the West Lake Substation at Mile 8 on the George Price Highway.
Basically, a lamppost carrying critical power lines snapped - causing the outage. The fact that it was raining at the time - further delayed works to repair it.
A release says at approximately 2:30 a.m., supply was restored to portions of the city, including Belama, Bella Vista, and Buttonwood Bay.
It would be another 10 hours before power was fully restored to the remaining areas in Belize City at 12:11 this afternoon.
And after earning every kind of negative review from customers who endured crushing inconveniences at home, work, and school today's BEL release glibly concludes: "We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this unplanned event and thank our Customers for your patience and understanding." Based on what we've heard, that patience and understanding ran out at around daybreak.
