US Virgin Islands Face Repeated Blackouts Amid Aging Infrastructure
St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands experienced a total blackout twice over the weekend, highlighting ongoing issues with the territory's power infrastructure. The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority attributed the outages to a loss of generation at a power plant. Despite efforts to restore power after the first blackout on Saturday, a second outage occurred on Sunday. The islands, home to over 46,000 residents, have been facing frequent power outages due to aging infrastructure, equipment shortages, and deferred maintenance. Governor Albert Bryan Jr. has invested $100 million in federal funding to address these issues, but challenges persist. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that more than half of the territory's petroleum-fueled generating units are over 25 years old, and past hurricanes have severely damaged the power distribution systems.