WAPA Announces Rotational Power for St. Thomas and St. John After Overnight Blackout; Schools Adjust Schedules Amid Water Outage

The V.I. Water and Power Authority on Thursday morning announced rotational service for St. Thomas and St. John, following a districtwide outage that left both islands without power the night before. WAPA also noted an error in the 7:00–9:00 a.m. rotation, clarifying that the affected feeders in that window were 8B and 7B. The utility said the schedule below is subject to change as necessary to meet generation and load demands.

Rotation Schedule for Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025

3AM–5AM: 6A, 5A

5AM–7AM: 7A, 7E

7AM–9AM: 8B, 7B (corrected)

9AM–11AM: 7C (Casi Hill), 6B, Westin St. John

11AM–1PM: 6A, 5A

1PM–3PM: 7A, 7E

3PM–5PM: 9C

5PM–7PM: 7B, 7E

7PM–9PM: 8A, 8B

9PM–11PM: 7C, 6B, Westin St. John

On Wednesday evening, WAPA issued a 7:11 p.m. alert reporting a districtwide outage impacting all customers on St. Thomas and St. John, adding that crews were working to restore service and the estimated restoration time was unknown.

Shortly after that alert, WAPA’s director of corporate communications Shanell Petersen told the Consortium the territory was “coming from a blackout,” explaining that generation at the Randolph Harley power plant was lost during an attempt to start Unit 15. “We lost the the generators, or the generation at the power plant when we attempted to start up unit 15. So right now we're coming from a blackout, so it's going to take a little bit of time to restore power,” she said. On the status of the unit, Petersen added, “They're still assessing.”