标签： Bahamas

The tight-knit coastal community of West End on Grand Bahama is gathering to mourn the passing of Keith Cooper, a trailblazing local eco-tourism entrepreneur and lifelong community champion who introduced thousands of people to the rich underwater biodiversity of the region’s waters. Cooper, the 69-year-old founder of West End Ecology Tours, collapsed and passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, August 2.

A native of West End, Cooper launched his eco-tourism venture in 2010 after returning to his hometown more than 20 years earlier following time living abroad. He quickly built a reputation as a trusted guide, leading hundreds of excursions to the iconic Sandy Cay that gave visitors the rare opportunity to interact safely with wild stingrays, while learning firsthand about the area’s shark populations, native fish species, and the delicate interconnected marine ecosystem that supports the island’s coast.

Kingsley Smith, the Member of Parliament for West Grand Bahama, emphasized that Cooper’s legacy stretches far beyond his successful tourism business. In the years after his return to West End, Smith said, Cooper poured his energy into lifting up the next generation of local young people, creating accessible outdoor programs that taught core skills like swimming and fishing, before expanding to add sailing opportunities. “It was something new for the community, and many young people benefited from his programme,” Smith noted.

Cooper’s tours also reshaped West End’s tourism landscape, drawing travelers who otherwise would have only visited the area’s popular nightlife into the heart of the village to experience its unspoiled natural beauty. Most recently, he had expanded his local footprint by venturing into the restaurant industry: he purchased the former Coffee on the Bay property, renovated the space, and launched Conchshells, a new eatery designed to give both residents and visitors an authentic taste of West End’s local culture and cuisine.

Joseph Darville, chairman of the Bahamian environmental advocacy group Save The Bays, shared that he joined Cooper on an excursion to Sandy Cay just two weeks before his death, to observe nurse sharks during their annual mating season. Darville said Cooper was enthusiastic and full of energy during the trip, updating him on the final renovations for his new restaurant and looking forward to its opening. “Keith Cooper had an intimate, almost divine knowledge of the ocean, the fish and everything connected to marine life,” Darville said, noting he had spent hundreds of hours exploring West End’s waters with Cooper over the years. “I learned a great deal from him. I always looked forward to spending time with him.”

Cooper also regularly partnered with environmental education programs, opening his tour sites to student groups who came to study marine ecosystems firsthand. He spent countless hours teaching visitors and students alike how to safely and respectfully interact with local marine life, Darville added.

Beyond his work in tourism and youth development, Cooper was also a critical support for West End in times of crisis. Following damaging hurricanes that have repeatedly impacted the Bahamas, Smith said Cooper leveraged his extensive network of international connections built through decades of tourism work to secure donations and emergency aid for local residents. “Any time there was a disaster, Keith used the many international contacts he had built over the years to help West End,” Smith explained. “People donated, and he always used his reach for the benefit of the community.”

Since news of Cooper’s death broke, tributes have flooded social media from current and former residents, past tour guests, and friends, many of whom highlighted the indelible mark he left on Grand Bahama’s identity and marine conservation work. Multiple commenters described his passing as a devastating loss for the community, noting that the island will never be the same without his leadership and passion. Both Smith and Darville extended formal condolences to Cooper’s family and loved ones, reflecting on the deep void his death leaves in the West End community. “He will be greatly missed,” Darville said.

A promising 18-year-old Bahamas resident with his whole future ahead of him has drowned in the South Beach Canal after ending up in the water alongside friends, leaving his heartbroken family grappling with inconsistent accounts of what led to the tragedy and struggling to come to terms with their loss. Ryan Alfred, an 18-year-old who could not swim, died on Friday after he and three companions were trapped by powerful currents near the canal’s sandbanks. His mother, 41-year-old Monique Alfred, says she is still unable to piece together the clear circumstances of her son’s death, with conflicting narratives emerging from witnesses about how he entered the water.

In an interview shared with local media, Monique Alfred emphasized that her son shared her inability to swim, and would never have intentionally entered deep water. “My son cannot swim just like me,” she explained. “He’ll go around the beach but he’s not going in the water because he can’t swim. Something ain’t adding up.” Conflicting witness statements have only deepened her confusion: one person told her Ryan had been unwilling to go into the water, while others offered entirely different versions of the fateful outing.

Official police accounts confirm that Alfred was in the water with a 17-year-old girl and two 19-year-old men when the entire group was suddenly caught in unexpectedly strong currents. One of the 19-year-old men told responding officers that he first saw the teenage girl in distress, pulled her to safety on shore, and turned back to rescue Alfred — but before he could reach him, a second powerful surge of current swept both men further out from shore. Alfred soon slipped beneath the surface and vanished before help could arrive.

Authorities were first alerted to the incident just after 7 p.m., launching an immediate multi-agency search operation that included local police and divers from the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. Divers eventually recovered Alfred’s body roughly 300 feet from the shoreline, and he was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders.

The family had begun growing worried hours before the official confirmation of his death, when repeated phone calls and text messages to Alfred went unanswered throughout the day. His father also attempted to contact him, before reaching out to one of Alfred’s sisters to ask if she had any information about his whereabouts. It was not until one of Alfred’s friends finally answered his phone that the family was told to rush immediately to the local police station, with the message that “something bad happened to Ryan.”

Monique Alfred recounted the chaotic, devastating moments after she received the news: “My daughter called and said ‘mummy, something wrong’. I didn’t have no ride and their daddy went there. I called him and he explained to me what happened. When I arrived at the station, police were already questioning my husband and Ryan’s friends, and at that point, they still hadn’t found his body.” Officers later returned from the recovery site to officially confirm the teen’s death, leaving his mother completely shattered. “The first thing I asked them ‘was my baby okay, Ryan okay’ and they said ‘no Ryan is dead’ and I said ‘what,’ and as a mother, I was at that station like crazy crying.”

Those who knew Alfred describe him as a quiet, kind-hearted young man who was deeply loved in his tight-knit Johnson Road community. A lover of video games, Alfred was a 2025 graduate of Doris Johnson High School who had recently taken the first steps toward building his adult life: he had just started a new job at local retailer Super Value, and was working as an apprentice welder under a local business owner in the St Anne’s area. For Monique Alfred, who raised three children on her own through significant financial hardship, her son was a steady, caring presence who always prioritized helping his family. Their last conversation before his death centered on his plan to use his first paycheck to buy new school supplies and new Clarks shoes for his 11-year-old younger sister. “He was saying, ‘Mummy, I gone help you with my 11-year-old sister because I know you’re not working,” Monique Alfred recalled. “I gon’ help you out and I think Clarks was on sale, and he was saying he’s gonna get the shoes. He’s like, ‘Mummy, what her size is and everything’.” After that conversation, Ryan left for work — it was the last time his mother would speak to him.

“My son was 18. He had plans. He wanted to help me take me on my situation,” his mother said, adding that Ryan’s father is also consumed by grief over the sudden loss. Alfred’s older sister Monica has been unable to eat or sleep since the tragedy, and says she is heartbroken she never got the chance to say goodbye. “I’m gonna miss the phone calls, the texting, the getting offs, the cracking jokes, the hugs, me being the annoying sister but I thank God for the 18 years he give us him,” she said. Like her mother, Monica also questioned how her brother, who disliked water and could not swim, ever ended up in the dangerous canal.

News of Alfred’s death has sparked an outpouring of tributes from across the local community on social media. Adrian White, the Member of Parliament for St Anne’s, remembered Alfred as a gentle, respectful young man who had his whole life ahead of him. “Despite not wanting to be in the water, Ryan found himself there. He has now gone on to heaven, leaving behind a grieving mother and two siblings,” White said. Senator Keno Wong also issued a statement of condolences, urging local residents to hold the Alfred family in their prayers during this impossible time.

As the family processes their grief and seeks answers about what exactly happened to Ryan, they are asking for community support to cover unexpected burial costs. Any member of the public wishing to contribute to the fund can contact Monique Alfred directly at 809-1474.

As grieving families and friends gathered over the weekend to lay to rest two of the five young victims of a fatal Shirley Street car collision, one family’s story of hardship, sacrifice and unbreakable sibling devotion has come to light.

Anthony Thompson, the older brother of 22-year-old Bertica Brown, opened up about the decades-long journey that saw him step into the role of both brother and father from his teenage years. When Brown was just two years old, she lost her father, and by the time she turned nine in 2015, the death of their mother left the pair orphaned. Thompson, then a homeless teenager, made the decision to take full guardianship of his little sister, raising her alongside his own wife and two young children in a makeshift shack in Abaco.

“When I received Trica, I was living in a shack,” Thompson shared in an emotional address during Saturday’s service. “But I didn’t let anybody know because I knew God’s journey.” Thompson described the overwhelming uncertainty he felt about raising a young child at such a young age, but threw himself fully into nurturing her growth and ambitions. When Brown developed an interest in throwing events for track and field, Thompson didn’t just support her from the sidelines — he coached her and even founded a local track club to give her space to practice. More than once, he went without meals to ensure his sister had enough to eat, a sacrifice that forced him to grow up far faster than any teenager should have to.

“There were times the brother in me wanted to let her do her own thing,” Thompson recalled. “Then the father in me would stand up and say, ‘No, I’ll give you every opportunity I possibly can.’”

Financial strain marked Brown’s entire childhood: for months at a time, Thompson could not cover the tuition for the private school he enrolled her in, and he dreamed of giving her travel opportunities that would help her secure a spot in college. Even amid these struggles, Brown never turned to rebellion; while she navigated the common growing pains of adolescent identity formation, she remained grounded and driven. Time and again, community sponsors stepped forward to cover her costs, a streak of good fortune Thompson attributes to divine favor.

Brown went on to graduate from Agape Christian School in Abaco, where she stood out as a star athlete in both volleyball and track and field. Before the crash that cut her life short, she had already earned multiple college scholarship offers. On Saturday, hundreds of mourners packed the Church of God Temple for her funeral, many wearing green in her honor, and loud wails of grief echoed through the sanctuary at multiple points during the service. Brown will be laid to rest in Abaco at a future date.

A separate funeral service was held the same weekend for 19-year-old Evalena Johnson, the second of the five crash victims to be honored, at Living Waters Kingdom Ministries. The three other victims — 17-year-old Diamond Stubbs, and 19-year-olds Stania Webb and Keno Gordon — have already been memorialized: a joint funeral was held for Stubbs and Webb on Cat Island last weekend, and Stubbs’ parents traveled to attend Brown’s service Saturday. Most of the eight people traveling in the vehicle the night of the crash had known each other since early childhood, adding another layer of heartbreak to the tragedy for their tight-knit community.

Thompson said he chose to share his family’s story after being moved by Stanley Webb’s tribute to his daughter Stania during the Cat Island service. Across all the services, tributes to Brown focused not on her athletic or academic achievements, but on the warmth of her character. Mourners remembered her as a kind, loving young woman with a generous spirit that made it impossible not to care for her. Bishop Denczil Rolle, who delivered the sermon at Brown’s funeral, recalled how Brown had once approached him directly to ask for university sponsorship. He told the congregation that her combination of frankness and respectful determination stuck with him, a perfect reflection of the drive that shaped her short life.

Nearly one month after a devastating plane crash claimed 10 lives during the Bahamas’ Independence Day celebrations, families of the victims are trapped in extended anguish, marked by the first funeral held on Saturday and an incomplete memorial held without a loved one’s remains.

In Nicholls Town on the island of Andros, hundreds of mourners packed the local Church of Christ to lay 24-year-old Macaro Rolle to rest, the first of the 10 crash victims to be buried. Rolle was one of the initial survivors of the crash, but ultimately succumbed to his injuries three hours after impact – a window of time that allowed him to say final goodbyes to his family and leave a lasting testimony of his deep Christian faith.

Rolle, who owned his own home by age 24, had built a reputation as a disciplined, reliable worker over seven years of employment at MSC Ocean Cay, where he missed only a single day of work. “That speaks about his character. That speaks about his legacy and life at MSC Ocean Cay,” said Anna Albury, the resort’s human resources manager. The company covered travel costs for more than 20 employees to attend the funeral and brought in professional grief counselors to support staff following the disaster.

Friends and relatives shared warm memories of Rolle’s consistent faith, recalling he would pray even before eating a small snack like a potato chip or piece of candy. In his final hours waiting for rescue, he called repeatedly on the name of Jesus. His aunt Linda Rolle noted that the three hours of survival after the crash gave his family a small measure of closure his counterparts in other bereaved families have yet to receive. “It’s not easy but I want to encourage my family today to know that God is faithful, just to keep him alive to bring closure to the other family members but most of all to leave a testimony. That’s important. We serve a faithful God,” she said.

Close family members shared poignant reminders of their final interactions before the fateful flight. One cousin recalled receiving Rolle’s room key just hours before takeoff, with plans to meet up later. “That’s the very same key I had to use later to pack up his things and bring it home,” he said, his grief raw weeks after the crash. Rolle was remembered as a loving sibling, loyal friend, avid fisherman and joke-teller who dedicated himself to helping others. His former high school classmates honored his memory by gifting his family a custom portrait, while local lawmaker Leonardo Lightbourne sent official condolences via a representative after being unable to attend.

Meanwhile, 40 kilometers away in New Providence, dozens of family members and friends gathered at Kingdom Evangelistic Apostolic Ministries for a memorial service for Rashad Storr – a member of the popular Da Pond Band and a mechanic for Western Air. Like several other victims, Storr’s remains have not been recovered and returned to his family due to severe burn damage that has complicated identification efforts, which currently rely on DNA testing to confirm victims’ identities. Even as speakers celebrated Storr’s life, the absence of his body hung over the entire service, with his relatives saying they will not find closure until his remains are returned.

Attendees wore dark green and gold to honor Storr, remembering his warmth as a musician, his generosity toward others, and his dedication to his craft. Bandmate Shaniese Miller said Storr’s kindness to everyone he met earned him the nickname “the great Rashad” long before the crash. “Not because he asked to be call that but because there was something truly great about the way he treated people,” Miller said. Friend Phil Rolle described Storr as a chosen brother who taught him to play guitar and always showed up for people in need. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good on the guitar as him but I have to keep the legacy going,” he said.

Western Air manager Ricardo Wilson also paid tribute to Storr’s work ethic, noting “He came to our organisation as an employee but he left as family.”

Alongside Rolle and Storr, the eight other victims of the crash include Da Pond Band leader Giovanni McKenzie, band members Mateo Winder, Toniquea Gilot and Tra’vis Johnson, popular DJ Melvin “DJ Fresh International” Henfield, Andros native Quintin Myers, lead pilot Franklyn Cambridge, and 16-year-old Nicholas Oliver Jr. As families continue to wait for identification results to bring their loved ones home, the dual services on Saturday highlighted the prolonged pain bereaved relatives continue to endure weeks after the tragedy.

A total island-wide power outage that brought daily life across New Providence to a standstill has sparked intense public scrutiny of the Davis administration’s energy policy, just weeks after officials insisted the national utility was fully prepared to meet peak summer demand. The shutdown, triggered by an electrical fire at Bahamas Power and Light (BPL)’s Blue Hills Power Station, left thousands of residents trapped in sweltering, unairconditioned homes, forced business closures, and disrupted commercial air travel through Nassau’s major airport.

In a press briefing held hours after power was cut, Prime Minister Philip Davis pushed back against critics who have pinned the blame for the outage on poor infrastructure maintenance or insufficient action by his administration. He framed the incident as the result of uncontrollable external factors, pointing to record-breaking regional heat that has strained the Bahamas’ already outdated electricity network beyond its designed limits.

According to preliminary findings from BPL, an undetermined fault in an underground cable sparked a fire that damaged a 15 MVA transformer, triggering a cascading failure that shut down generation at both the Blue Hills and Clifton Pier power stations. Investigations into the root cause of the initial cable fault are still ongoing, with no definitive conclusion reached as of the briefing.

Davis pushed back against claims of human error or institutional neglect, asking: “You have a transformer that’s blown up because of overheating of underground cables, was that man’s fault? The excessive heat, the record heat that we are experiencing over the last several months. May, for example, was the hottest in history. June — same thing.” He added that persistent extreme temperatures have overwhelmed the country’s aging transmission and distribution network, which his administration inherited when it took office.

The Prime Minister also revealed long-standing systemic gaps that have complicated infrastructure maintenance and incident response: decades of institutional turnover at BPL and its predecessor, the Bahamas Electricity Corporation, have left the utility without a complete centralized inventory mapping the location of all underground cables, erasing critical institutional knowledge of the national grid.

Davis warned Bahamians to brace for additional power disruptions in the coming months as the government undertakes a sweeping overhaul of BPL’s outdated infrastructure, much of which has already reached the end of its planned service life. “There will be growing pains to get to where we need to be because of what we inherited,” he said. “Incidents like these remind us of the state of play of BPL.”

To address public anger over the outage, Davis confirmed he has directed BPL leadership to explore potential financial concessions for residential and commercial customers affected by the shutdown, with the utility set to announce what relief it can offer in the coming days.

He also pushed back against claims that the crisis is a unique failure of Bahamian governance, noting that power grid disruptions linked to extreme heat have become increasingly common across the globe. Still, he stressed that his administration is prioritizing aggressive grid modernization, pointing to ongoing transmission and distribution upgrades, new substation construction, and a major renewable energy project at the Blue Hills site that will add 20 megawatts of solar generation and 25 megawatts of battery storage once completed.

BPL’s top leadership has echoed Davis’s framing, while acknowledging gaps in the utility’s contingency response and apologizing to the public. Chief Operating Officer Anthony Christie suggested the underground cable likely had an undiagnosed pre-existing fault that was exacerbated by extreme peak electrical demand amid the heat wave, triggering a chain reaction that damaged nearby cables as well. He denied that poor maintenance contributed to the incident, though he confirmed the full investigation is still ongoing.

Executive Chair Christina Alston acknowledged in a formal statement that BPL’s contingency plans have clear limits when multiple critical failures occur in close succession. “That is not an excuse. It is the reality we’re confronting — and responsibility we understand,” she said, adding that public trust can only be restored through tangible, measurable improvements to service reliability and communication, not just verbal assurances.

BPL Chief Executive Officer Toni Pratt offered a public apology to New Providence residents, acknowledging the severe discomfort the outage caused during a period of extreme heat. “We know that it is very, very hot, and we understand your frustration. We are working as safely and as quickly as we possibly can to restore supply,” she said. As of the latest updates, power has been systematically restored to most parts of the island, though limited outages persist in some areas while final repairs are completed.

Bahamas Grid Company Chief Operating Officer Ryan Holder said repair crews began assessing the damaged transformer overnight, with total repair work projected to take between eight and ten hours. Crews have been working around live energized infrastructure to excavate the affected area, install new protective conduit, and lay replacement transmission cable.

This outage marks one of the worst summer power outage events the Bahamas has seen in a decade, an issue that has become a key political measuring stick for sitting administrations, renewing public pressure on the Davis government to deliver on its promises of grid reliability.

A catastrophic infrastructure failure left the entire island of New Providence, Bahamas, without power for seven hours or longer in some communities yesterday, triggering widespread disruption to daily life, travel and healthcare while reviving long-simmering public fury over exorbitant energy costs and chronically unreliable service from national utility Bahamas Power and Light (BPL).

The outage struck abruptly at approximately 1:45 a.m., right in the middle of the night when temperatures remain dangerously high and residents are most dependent on cooling systems. BPL officials quickly traced the blackout to an explosion of a 15MVA transformer at the Blue Hills Primary substation, which they say was initiated by an underground cable fault. Footage released by the utility showed critical equipment completely engulfed in flames before firefighting crews were able to extinguish the blaze.

With no air conditioning to counter stifling overnight heat, thousands of residents were forced to flee their homes in search of cooler conditions. A field report from the Tribune found residents huddled along shorelines with blankets and pillows, chasing the faint ocean breeze, while others opted for early morning swims to beat the heat. Roads were unusually congested in the pre-dawn hours, and many residents slept inside their running cars with fogged windows, evidence of hours spent waiting out the outage. Gas station parking lots also became informal gathering spots for groups seeking vehicle-powered cooling. Multiple residents reported waking up completely soaked through with sweat as indoor temperatures climbed overnight.

Public frustration boiled over quickly on BPL’s social media channels, where hundreds of customers flooded comment sections with complaints. Many condemned the utility for repeatedly failing to deliver consistent service, even as customers are forced to pay some of the highest electricity rates in the region. “Hours after they sent those crazy bills, a night of darkness and sweat…what are we paying for?” one Facebook user wrote. Another commented: “It seems completely unfair to be paying hefty bills and melting in the heat. You want the customers to be patient but the scales are tipped in your favour.” Calls for systemic change were widespread, with some residents demanding full privatization of BPL and others pushing for the introduction of open competition to the Bahamian electricity sector.

The disruption extended far beyond residential areas, upending commercial operations and travel across the island. Fast food chains faced delayed openings and extended customer wait times after many hourly employees were unable to arrive for their shifts on schedule. At Lynden Pindling International Airport, the outage knocked out main internet services, halting international check-in processes for Bahamasair and triggering long queues at check-in counters. Airport operations switched over to backup generator power and a reserve internet connection to resolve delays, with full service restored shortly after 8 a.m. when main power returned. Princess Margaret Hospital, the island’s main public medical facility, avoided major disruption, with officials reporting only minor temperature fluctuations that did not impact patient care.

Bahamas Energy Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis publicly acknowledged the widespread anger caused by the outage, confirming that a high-voltage system fault destroyed one of the network’s primary transformers. She explained that the explosion caused a flashover, which required crews to isolate critical equipment to protect both on-site workers and the broader electricity grid. Once the system was secured and stabilized, BPL crews launched a complex “black start” restoration process, one of the most technically challenging operations an energy provider can undertake. The process requires bringing generation units online in a carefully controlled sequence, then progressively energizing substations and restoring power to customer areas in stages, with every step coordinated in real time between control room staff, generation facilities, substation teams and field crews.

Coleby-Davis also extended recognition to the BPL workers who led the restoration effort, noting that many crews worked nonstop through grueling conditions just days after the utility lost a valued colleague to recent death. “While I fully understand the frustration experienced by households and business, I also wish to express my sincere thanks to the dedicated men and women of BPL,” she said.

The outage quickly became a political flashpoint, with Free National Movement (FNM) leader Michael Pintard placing full blame for the crisis on the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Davis administration. Pintard rejected recent claims from PLP chairman Fred Mitchell that blamed the current infrastructure problems on decisions made by the previous FNM administration. He countered that the current administration canceled a major infrastructure contract with Finnish firm Wärtsilä, terminated development contracts for the critical Station A power facility and took multiple functioning generators offline during its tenure. Pintard argued that the FNM had returned disabled generators to service and stabilized the national transmission and distribution network during its time in office. “What’s the bottom line? What accounts for the chaos that we now are experiencing with BPL? The PLP,” he said. “They have had carte blanche—In other words, nobody has been able to interrupt what they have done in terms of privatizing BPL—and yet they have not been able to provide cleaner power, more affordable power, or worst of all, consistent power for the Bahamian people.”

Power restoration began in phases, with some areas regaining service as early as 6:30 a.m., and service gradually extended to most communities throughout the day. But the crisis did not end once main power was restored. BPL immediately announced temporary rotational blackouts for parts of western New Providence to prevent further strain on the grid, warning customers of scheduled outages between 1 p.m. yesterday and 1 a.m. today. The utility also confirmed it was responding to multiple separate minor outages across the island yesterday, though it has not yet released details on the cause of each additional incident.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, a widespread blackout cut power to the entire island of New Providence, Bahamas, after an underground cable fault sparked a transformer explosion and subsequent electrical fire at the Blue Hills Power Station, according to official updates from Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), the territory’s primary electricity provider.

The utility company issued its first public alert regarding the outage at approximately 4:00 a.m., confirming that the incident at the generation facility had led to a total loss of electricity service across all of New Providence. Preliminary engineering investigations launched immediately after the incident traced the root cause to an suspected fault in an underground transmission cable, which triggered the blast that destroyed a 15-megavolt-ampere (MVA) transformer at the station and ignited the resulting electrical fire.

Emergency response teams quickly contained the blaze, extinguishing it safely before any additional damage to the facility or injuries to personnel were reported. Immediately after the fire was put out, specialized BPL repair and grid restoration teams were deployed to begin bringing the system back online. Initially, the company warned customers that it could not provide a definitive timeline for full service restoration, given the extent of the damage caused by the explosion.

Just two hours after the initial outage was reported, by 6:00 a.m., BPL confirmed that staged grid restoration work was well underway. To protect grid integrity and prevent a secondary collapse, service was brought back to communities incrementally rather than restoring all power at once. The first neighborhoods to regain service included Bonita Bay, SC McPherson, Winton 1 and 2, and Harold Road, alongside portions of Yellow Elder and Stapleton Gardens.

Within 30 minutes of that update, the company added more restored communities to the list: the popular tourist hub Paradise Island was brought back online, along with East Street South, South Beach Estates, Pinewood, Marshall Road, Bamboo Town, Fox Hill Road, and sections of the Prince Charles neighborhood. By 7:00 a.m., service had also been restored to Gladstone Road, Firetrail Road, and portions of Carmichael Road and Sears Road.

In BPL’s latest public update, issued at 7:18 a.m., just three hours and 18 minutes after the initial outage was declared, the company confirmed that approximately 50 percent of all New Providence electricity customers had already had their service restored. Restoration teams remain on site across the island working around the clock to restore power to the remaining affected customers as quickly as possible, while prioritizing worker and public safety throughout the process.

BPL has issued a public appeal for customers who remain without power in areas that have been officially listed as restored: those customers are asked to contact the company’s 24-hour customer call centre at 225-5275 to report their individual outages so crews can address localized issues. In a closing statement, the utility apologized to all customers for the major service disruption and extended its gratitude to the public for their patience as the final stages of restoration continue.