By Bryan Manabat
[email protected]
Variety News Staff
THE Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission on May 4 pressed the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation to revise its publicly stated 90-day power restoration timeline, with acting CPUC Chairman Jack Angello questioning whether the three-month target still reflects conditions on the ground after new data showed that only about 5% of Saipan’s power poles were knocked down by Super Typhoon Sinlaku.
The special meeting was attended in person by Commissioner Bruce Camacho, while Commissioners Oscar Quitugua and Martin Mendiola joined via Zoom.
Angello said updated figures — 624 downed poles out of roughly 12,300 poles normally in service — suggest the grid may be in better structural shape than many residents initially believed. He urged CUC to move away from a blanket 90-day estimate and toward more precise, data-driven benchmarks.
“I want to ask again, do you stand by that 90-day period?” Angello said, noting that residents had approached him “some with tears in their eyes” after hearing they might be without electricity for months. “If there is hope of shortening it, is there hope to have it shortened in some areas?”
CUC Executive Director Kevin Watson defended the utility’s timeline but acknowledged that restoration is already underway in several zones, particularly around critical facilities. He said mutual-aid crews from the Guam Power Authority and U.S. public power utilities are reinforcing CUC’s workforce.
“In some areas, we have already gotten power restored,” Watson said, citing the hospital and other priority loads. As of May 4, electricity had been restored in several neighborhoods — especially where primary distribution lines remained intact or required minimal repairs — including Lower Base, Puerto Rico, Lower and Upper Navy Hill, Garapan, Beach Road, Middle Road, Quarter Master, and portions of Susupe.
“To be 100%, it will probably take 90 days, if not longer,” Watson added. He said line crews are working “15- to 16-hour days, nonstop, seven days a week” and predicted “tremendous progress just in the next couple of weeks” as more equipment and personnel arrive.
Angello pressed for interim milestones, suggesting that most households might see power restored well before the full system is rebuilt.
“So, eliminating the pockets of major destruction, could it be that 75% would be restored within 30 days, 45 days?” he asked.
Watson did not commit to a revised target but left the possibility open.
“I’m hopeful that it could be,” he said, while cautioning, “I don’t want to make a promise that will come back to bite me.”
Commissioners also reviewed updated assessments of Saipan’s distribution system. Utility officials said that while about 5% of poles were down or damaged, transformer losses were higher. Of the roughly 4,243 transformers typically in operation on Saipan, about 552 — or 13% — were damaged in the storm. Despite visible destruction in many neighborhoods, officials described the figures as “more promising” than the widespread public perception that “everything is broken.”
The exchange highlighted growing pressure on CUC to refine its restoration outlook as residents weigh weeks or months without full power against a grid that, on paper, lost only a small fraction of its hardened infrastructure.
Bryan Manabat was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College where he also studied criminal justice. He is the recipient of the NMI Humanities Award as an Outstanding Teacher (Non-Classroom) in 2013, and has worked for the CNMI Motheread/Fatheread Literacy Program as lead facilitator.
