Thousands lose power in CUC’s latest equipment failure
CUC crew at work (file photo)
(CNS): CUC maintenance crews were hard at work Sunday after an as yet undisclosed technical problem cut electricity to as many as 14,000 customers. According to a post on the company’s Facebook page, customers in West Bay, George Town, Bodden Town and North Side were affected but the monopoly power provider has not yet explained the cause of the widespread outage. The first customers were said to have lost power around 5pm and most were reconnected by 7pm. But early Monday morning customers in Prospect lost power again, reportedly as a result of a car crashing into a pole.
Category: Local News
Let us not forget to mention the number of personal electronic equipment losses due to power surges and power losses which CUC never compensate cause it’s never their FAULT!
It is nothing short of poor transmission design when just one pole affects so many people. It is cheaper to design a system with so many single point failures than ones with adequate re-routes to minimize interruption. CUC should be heavily fined for power outages for not fulfilling the need for power supply.
Lived 40+ years in europe.
Can’t remember a single power outage.
Well Madam/Sir, if you lived 40+ years in “Europe” you should be well over 50 now and memory would start to fade. Just saying. Plus Europe is not a comparable country just size alone plus the other resources they have.
Yep, you’re correct. They do have different resources. Ones that work…
Unfortunately memory does start to fade for some people after 50, but even more unfortunate is that intelligence never arrived for many more at birth.
Did you live on an island in Europe? Probably not.
7:46 In which case you’ve never lived in any rural part of Europe. My partner comes from Northern France and in the Winter months her family regularly has outages.
Why should a damaged pole in Prospect affect power in George Town?
CUC would like to reassure customers that Directors’ bonuses and Shareholders’ dividends were not interrupted by the latest power outage.
CUC will continue to provide the usual third world service at eye-wateringly first world prices, which its customers are unable to challenge or escape thanks to the cosy monopoly arrangement agreed to by government.
CUC. They’ve got the power. Sometimes. You’ve got the bill. Always
You should try living in a 3rd world country. Then you would realize how stupid your comment really is. Fancy daily outages?
I do not like outages either but 3rd world the service is not.
11:15 I don’t agree with you that the original comment is stupid – I think it’s spot on.
However, if we are bragging about Third World experiences try this – a hotel in the Egyptian Sinai where they turned the power off at 9pm and didn’t switch it back on until 7am next day. Try that when the daytime temps are hitting the wrong side of 120F! I had an apartment in that region with no a/c – fact of life you can live without electricity if you want.
What do you mean ‘…try living in a 3rd world country’. We ARE living in a 3rd world country.
This is brilliant……
This is one of the best comments I have ever read
JTB – Love the post!!!!
The post is so accurate and on point!!
I bet it was the pole’s fault…probably jumped out and distracted the driver.
For a split second there, I thought you were going to blame Trump..
Get a grip
Touchy snowflake
…or President Duterte!
It wasn’t the Pole’s fault at all. It was the Bulgarian’s fault.
folks in Cayman lucky – outages are quickly dealt with. other parts of the caribbean you’d be with no power for a day or more with no explanations.
yes the prices are high – the cost of living in cayman.
but it is not always CUC fault for outages. so try and be a lil more balanced in your anger.
I am not surprised at the comments about poor service, however, if every service in Cayman was as reliable as CUC what a great Island this would be. Having lived in three other countries I am quite pleased with the CUC performance to date. So many comments by resentful people who are miserable souls.
Call a government department or large commercial operation on the island and see how much ‘service’ you get.
The difference is, CUC is GUARANTEED nearly 1 Million Dollars of PROFIT PER MONTH on the backs of 60,000 people. So yes, we should have an expectation of exceptional service.
Guaranteed???? How so?
The Government has an agreement with CUC that CUC can change / raise the price (approved by the government) to maintain their profit.
That is how you get electricity—you pay all the costs and a profit. If you don’t do that last part, you don’t get any juice. (or you can have the government do it and hope they do better than they do the garbage,)
I dont think anyone is arguing against the idea of paying for power, just the idea that if the profit is guaranteed for that much money in a government approved monopoly, then service should be excellent.
That is true and their profit was recently published over this same site along with other media sites in the island, there is no consumer protection here in Cayman Islands and its very sad and not to mention the Govt members who initially made CUC a guaranteed return of 15% returns . SMH. Pure robbery existing here in Cayman Islands and not sad nor am I having fear to say the least. Water company is another utility who sets their water pressure at 60PSI and this means when the water hits the meter and starts flowing the meter turns rapidly in actually we arent using the thousands of gallons of water that the bill sent to consumer depicts. not to mention the chlorine in the water that burns ones hair and also eyes , Please dont take no showers at 2 am in the mornings as this seems to be the time that they are injecting the chlorine. Thank God i still have my well with a filtration system and dont use Water company often . They have both just posted robust profits. People need to educate themselves here in Cayman as pure plundering is happening here and called Pirates. BTW Pirates week just concluded but we have Piracy occurring here daily and it wont stop any time soon
I suppose it could be worse, we could have Flow in charge of our electricity…
I like a nice power-cut. Candles, no wifi, spam for supper. Cosy.
It’s all part of living in the third world. Enjoy it.
Power was restored to our area well before 7PM. While I agree that CUC Management should have already provided an interim update, I am pleased that resolving the immediate issue was given priority. I urge CUC to do the appropriate followups and to keep it’s customers informed.
Sounds like a voice from on the inside!
Gotta love government supported monopolies guaranteed absurd annual profits that fail at their primary functions
Another day.. another scammed dollar in Cayman
Guaranteed?????????? How so?
CNS, please publish the names of the members of government and senior civil servants who are shareholders of CUC.
I don’t live in Prospect but on Phelan Close off South Church St. We lost power from 4.30am this morning for 3 hours, in addition to the 2 hour outage on Sunday night.
With CUC increasing it’s profits almost every year aided by Governments co-operation in approving almost annual rate increases, they can well afford to compensate customers for this considerable inconvenience that is becoming more common.
Perhaps OfReg with advice from it’s consultants can consider requiring CUC to make refunds to customer accounts whenever this happens, I would suggest $20 for the first hour and $10 for every additional hour of loss of power.
This should have the dual advantage of appeasing upset customers, and encouraging CUC to reduce these outages with higher maintenance standards and a quicker response when they do occur.
The time has come for CUC to be hit with punitive customer refunds. For this latest fiasco, CUC should be forced to refund CI$200 to each and every customer affected.
We had power out in GT from like 4-7:30am after the 4-7pm original outage. Ridiculous.
The outage in the middle of the night was from a car accident- knocking down a pole in Prospect.
What is it with people driving into poles here!
I would say that every now and then a driver attempts to play tag with these poles, but it always ends up that the pole wins. They just don’t learn. lol
More often than not, they are poleaxed at the time.
Some drive into the canal!
Are we really surprised anymore?
Pathetic.
The guns fell silent 100 years ago, while CUC made sure all electrical supplies also fell silent to mark the day.