The major upgrades that T&TEC has been carrying out in recent years, replacing archaic equipment with state-of-the-art power-generating facilities and improving services to customers, appear to be finally bearing fruit.
The speed and efficiency with which personnel from the T&T Electricity Commission (T&TEC) and emergency services responded to Wednesday evening's power outage in west Trinidad set a new high standard for which those entities must be commended.The timelines tell it all. The fire at T&TEC's Westmoorings substation was detected at 6.08 pm, when thousands of customers in Diego Martin, Westmoorings, Glencoe, Petit Valley, Cocorite, Shorelands, Carenage and down the islands lost power.
Within minutes, T&TEC had shut off power to the substation and by 7 pm, once it had been confirmed that no power was going to or coming out of the facility, fire officers were able to safely move in and bring the fire under control.Fire officers from headquarters on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, and Four Roads Fire Station, who were on the scene within minutes after the initial report, took about 20 minutes to extinguish the fire.To ensure that the scene of the fire and affected communities were secure, a helicopter from the National Operations Centre circled the area. An official from the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management was on the scene, as were Rapid Response Unit and Western Division police.