After power outages plagued St. Thomas and St. John residents on and off Tuesday afternoon, problems with Unit 13 caused widespread outages again Wednesday.
Glenn Rothgeb, assistant executive director of the Water and Power Authority, said the problem was with a "faulty sealing steam regulator" on No. 13, WAPA's largest unit.
However, Rothgeb said the problem "was not as bad as was originally thought," and as of 6 p.m. the unit was back on line and "limping along" at about 50 percent of capacity.
The problems with Unit 13 took down feeders 6, 7 and 9 for several hours.
WAPA spokeswoman Patricia Blake Simmonds said the problems with 13 were compounded by the fact that Unit 11 was also not available.
Rothgeb said Unit 15, which had been down for a month undergoing a major overhaul, was almost ready to go back on line and could take some load off 13, but added that "it will be a couple of days before Unit 15 is fully reliable, as calibration and other adjustments must be made."
Rothgeb said WAPA was doing all it could to keep the power on. He suggested, however, that customers hold off doing laundry if possible.
