TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Island wide blackout

⚠️BREAKING NEWS⚠️

NV GEBE hereby informs the public that we are experiencing an island wide black out. The power plant technicians have gone into immediate action assessing the problem(s).

A full update will be sent once the information becomes available.

NV GEBE apologizes for the inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for your patience as we assess the issue(s) and start restoration.

Friends staying on the island say that GEBE has gone out a few times today. Island 92 Radio posted they are having generator problems and off the air for now. Friends staying at Mary's Boon say The Boon has a brand new generator working fine. Lights, AC etc on. Just little island in the middle of the ocean problems.

Most all of the larger resorts have their own power supply when GEGE goes bonkers.

PJIA outage.LINK Here

We had a slight issue this morning at Divi but then generator kicked back on. However, Bill and I left the property for adventures! We are back now and everything seems to be okay.

From personal experience, PJIA was an absolute clusterf*ck yesterday. We arrived at noon for a 2:30 flight. At the time that we arrived, a person came out and said that due to the power outage, they could NOT check anyone in. So there were still problems at noon, apparently. Stood OUTSIDE for over an hour. During this time, they were only letting a few people at a time in, but were going through the long line, which stretched the entire length of the terminal on the outside sidewalk, calling out for people on earlier flights, like Jet Blue and Delta, ect., taking them out of the line and around us, who were waiting, not very patiently. Once we got inside, the a/c was on, which was a real blessing. By the time we waited in the huge AA line, security, etc., they were boarding our plane. We were one of the last ones on. The plane actually left virtually on time, which I was shocked at, as there were a LOT of people behind us in line, but I guess they did a check and everyone that was supposed to be onboard was. My seatmates told me they arrived at 11:30 at the airport and at that time, the AA counter was NOT open yet, and that it took them until 1:30 to get through check in and security, etc. And this was on a Monday, with not that many planes in. Of course, I'm not sure how much of the delay was caused by the electrical problems.

I figured you were caught up in that mess. Tough way to end a vacation.

Yup. Talk about a buzz kill.

Gebe has a Facebook page that is updated regularly but no posts since yesterday’s outage?

No idea. Presumably they want everyone to forget about it. BTW, that's pretty scary to me, that their backup generator did not work, according to the Daily Herald story. AND that they would not confirm, one way or another, whether the tower was also down!!!!!!

This may sound like a dumb question, but don't they have backup generators? Would seem like a good idea at an airport handling international flights. Even smaller regional airports use backup generators should weather conditions knock out power during high winds or an electrical storm. What if an incoming plane is on its approach and started their descent and poof! The power goes out. Might not want to be on Maho beach when that happens.

They do. It didn’t work!!!

The entire airport situation is a total joke.

Is Gebe still down and the Dutchside with no electricity?

As a side comment, a couple of years ago I was in Martinique and rented a car to pick up friends at the airport there. This airport is quite big, much larger than SXM. When I got there the place was dark and the fire department had rigged up some Klieg lights which showed over 1000 people sitting around outside the dark terminal building. It turns out that the airport's emergency generating system had failed because most of the generators had "evaporated" and couldn't be found or run. All flights were diverted to Martinique until a daytime VFR approach could be attempted the next day.

Nobody seemed particularly surprised. The French attitude consisted of a shrug and a "c'est la vie".

Not acceptable unless customers are notified! NOT all have generators to run their refrigerators or food spoils and cisterns do not work, which means no water.

snuba posted from Beachside today, so I know the electric is back on today, for sure.

BSV may have bought a generator. I read snuba trip report and she did not mention anything about electric but maybe I missed something. If you have a mobile device you can use WiFi at a restaurant and also charge battery in your car.

No, BSV does not have a generator.

Did anybody that just posted read the article I posted????

We had power all day today

I think the main issue is with the airport backup generator NOT working and the fact air traffic control may not have been working.

From the DH article from June 21: "It could not be ascertained whether the tower generator was also affected and how this affected flight management. Power was restored at PJIA in just under an hour. "

LINK

GEBE

Got
Everyting
But
Electricity

For sure, that is scary as crap, if the ATC went down also!! As often as GEBE goes down, what happens if a plane is on final approach and can't contact the tower???????????

Good question for the person in charge of the airport, or GEBE, or the SXM government. I am sure they will have something to say about it but not actually do much of anything.