Saint Andrews secures NB Power meeting to discuss outages

Saint Andrews residents frustrated with recent power outages can take their concerns to the utility.

Mayor Brad Henderson said a public meeting is being scheduled with NB Power officials for later in July.

The news follows a Canada Day power outage that left thousands in the area without electricity for several hours.

Henderson said it was one of many outages the Saint Andrews area has experienced over the past year.

The mayor, CAO Chris Spear, MLA Andrea Anderson-Mason, and the local chamber president met with NB Power officials on Wednesday.

“We discussed the impacts these outages have had on our residents, the significant financial harm inflicted on our economy, and the growing lack of public confidence in the utility,” Henderson said in a Facebook post.

“During the meeting, we reviewed the causes of the outages over the past year and the preventive measures planned for the future.”

Henderson said they also emphasized the importance of NB Power being transparent with the public and advocated for an open meeting to present this information and answer residents’ questions.

The mayor added that the utility is also investigating why cell phone service has been compromised during outages as the towers are supposed to be able to operate off battery power for an extended period of time.

There is no word yet on when and where the public meeting will take place.

In a statement, NB Power said it recognizes that the recent power outages in the Saint Andrews community have been a major inconvenience.

“While many of the outages in recent months have been caused by wildlife, we are working to identify root causes and measures that we can put in place to help prevent this in the future,” said the statement.

The utility added that it is committed to improving reliability for customers and will meet with residents to discuss their concerns.