The Tribune

Grand Bahama Power Company says it has restored power to more than 90 percent of customers with dry homes in non-flooded areas following Hurricane Dorian's passage.

Giving an update on restoration efforts, the island's monopoly utility provider said it had come a long way in the two to three weeks since the category five storm flooded its Peel Street generation plant and downtown substations.

Much of GB Power's 90-vehicle fleet was also written-off in the flooding and storm surge, with its workforce also suffering their own losses in Dorian's wake. However, the utility said its first customers were safely re-energised within five days of the storm's passage.

"To date, power is restored to over 90 percent of our customers with dry homes in non-flooded areas," the utility said in a statement. "Our restoration efforts expanded recently to flood areas due to the unwavering support from those of our Emera affiliates (TECO & PIKE), the industrial community right here in Freeport, and the Grand Bahama Port Authority building and development services team who is working closely with our team to inspect homes in areas that experienced flood damage to their electrical systems."

GB Power added that restoration crews have been deployed to eastern Grand Bahama, the area hardest hit by Dorian, to assess its infrastructure and source clean energy solutions for the remaining residents there as the stretch between "over the bridge" through to Sweetings Cay recovers.

"We know that customers are anxious to be connected, and our crews continue to work in the remaining areas to ready those areas to be energised," GB Power said. "Experience tells us that our system reliability will be plagued by small outages over the days and weeks to come, due to the beating that both our electrical system and our customers' electrical systems took from Dorian.

"We continue to work feverishly to ready the headquarters building, as well as offer a point of reference for customers who may have queries following the storm. Our mobile unit officially launched on Wednesday, September 18t, to address customer queries from 9am to 3pm at the headquarters site."