ORANJESTAD, Aruba. A fire at the Paardenbaai substation operated by Aruba's power supplier Elmar caused an outage affecting a large part of Aruba's capital Oranjestad. Power has been restored but Elmar has appealed for consumption cooperation until the problem has been fully resolved.
The fire occurred at around 1pm AST and affected several other substations that led to a widespread outage in Oranjestad including all shops and businesses in the capital's main street. Three hotels were also affected, namely the Renaissance Aruba Resort, Divi Dutch Village and Divi Tamarijn.
Elmar worked on the problem to restore power by redistributing and rebalancing load over alternate channels and stations, and has asked for cooperation from businesses in affected areas to limit consumption as much as possible. Elmar's director Mr. Freddie Rafini, speaking at a press conference flanked by representatives of the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association (AHATA) and the Aruba Trade and Industry Association (ATIA) made this appeal, urging that if this was done, normal distribution would be possible for everyone until the damaged components could be fully repaired, a process that will take some time and requires expertise from abroad. Mr. Rob Smith representing AHATA and Mr. Greg Peterson representing ATIA also supported Elmar in their appeal for moderation of consumption in the coming period. Repair cost is expected to surpass a million florins.
