(Trinidad Express) – There was no sabotage.
The island-wide blackout of Wednesday, February 16 was “an act of God” “triggered” when a 21.64-metre-tall fungus-infected Palmiste tree in the vicinity of Grants Trace Extension Road in the Rousillac area hit a high-voltage transmission line, causing a cascading chain of events which led to system failure in Trinidad.
During this period when electricity was lost for over 12 hours, there was a remarkable failure in information sharing in that none of the agencies involved—including T&TEC, Independent Power Producers (IPP), the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) and law enforcement agencies—took up the ball to provide leadership, particularly with respect to the provision of pertinent and timely information to a concerned public. They allowed the ball to drop.
These were among the findings of the three-member committee appointed by the Government to investigate the circumstances which gave rise to the failure of the electricity supply in Trinidad on February 16. The Report was tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday by Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales.
While it was particularly critical of the “absence of the ODPM”, the committee praised the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, stating: “Despite the lack of effective communication to all stakeholders, the protective services took the initiative to trigger a creditable response and should be commended for so doing…There was no evidence that ‘criminal’ elements were able to take advantage of the situation.”
But, the committee noted it was evident that none of the agencies ever contemplated a total power failure as one of the many national disasters that could occur and that they needed to be prepared for. “If they did, they would have known that the Internet would have been lost and hence using Internet-enabled communications should not be the primary communication medium…Also a sizeable percentage of the public does not use these social apps. No one even thought about FM radio. Everyone uses radio yet radio reports were not the chosen medium,” the committee noted.
The fallen tree
The committee stressed that once the blackout happened, no single person took on the role of Incident Commander and had overall authority as well as detailed knowledge of the restoration process.
“The committee noted that the particular incident presented an ideal opportunity for the various security agencies to take the mantle of leadership during a critical incident but instead they were ball watching to see if anyone else would take the catch; and in the end, dropped the ball entirely. According to the ODPM, T&TEC was the lead agency in this situation and as such dealt with the incident response and communication, giving regular updates via social media…The ODPM also indicated that T&TEC did not ask for assistance, but considering the situation, does a lifeguard await the screams of a drowning individual to render assistance, or do due diligence and prudent critical thinking resonate into appropriate action?,” the committee asked.
ODPM should not have had to wait on a request for assistance, it added.
In analysing the root cause of the blackout—the fallen tree—the committee said a review by the Forestry Division, Ministry of Agriculture indicated that the windy condition at that time, (coupled) with the fungal infection and heavy rotting at the base of the tree caused the tree to fall, “hence this incident was due to natural causes”.
“A recreation of the incident on the day indicated that the Palmiste tree first struck the 12 kv line (a line with voltage greater than 39,000 volts) between poles 72 and 73, pulling this line into rigid tension…This caused the top of the pole 72 to bend in tension towards the fallen tree, which slipped (and),, fell and rested on the lower TSTT communication cable. This in effect caused the 12 kv freed line to oscillate like a plucked guitar string… The first oscillation caused a whipping of the conductor…(causing it) …to come into contact with (two 220v circuits) #2 circuit first and then the #1 circuit.” This sequence of events precipitated the collapse of the electricity grid, “the Report stated.
It was a genuine case of system failure and no evidence of sabotage or malicious damage to any plant, equipment or machinery, the report added.
Within one hour of the outage, all three generation stations, following their procedures, attempted to start their black start units. However, problems at the units at both Penal and Point Lisas led to the units tripping again. In the succeeding hours there were multiple failed attempts “that showcased the lack of in-depth technical knowledge of the behaviour of the units under these abnormal conditions which in turn led to the significant delays in a successful restoration of the power system,” the committee said. “While each of the facilities had documented procedures for black starting testing which were followed, these procedures did not address the abnormal situations that arose when the entire power system was dead, and what should be done in situations such as this,” the committee said. “The IPPs (Independent Power Producers) and T&TEC staff made many unforced errors in the re-energisation process,” the committee said. “This delay and associated challenges were consistent with the findings of the T&TEC Report on the Extreme System Disruption of Friday, March 29, 2013. This meant that lessons were not learnt from that event,” the committee noted.
People left in the dark
Because security, industry, business, traffic, utilities, healthcare and households all depend on electricity for successful operations, it was imperative that pertinent information regarding the loss of supply, the cause and nature of the loss, and the anticipated time for restoration of supply, be disseminated in an appropriate and timely manner.
However the committee noted that this was not the case.
The committee observed that telecommunication, a vital mode of information, was impacted by the blackout, with TSTT and Digicel suffering impaired services.
Noting that there was no formally documented policy that dictated which organisation should have taken control of this important aspect of information dissemination and public awareness, the committee recommended that the lead agency for information coordination and dissemination in such a situation be the ODPM.
In examining the communication strategies utilised by the stakeholders to inform the public, the Committee observed that communication was done primarily through the use of T&TEC’s Facebook page. “Although T&TEC has a documented Disaster Preparedness Manual, a nationwide blackout is not identified as a disaster (in that manual),” the Report noted.
“There were no official alerts, public statements, or media releases from the ODPM, NOC (National Operations Centre) or other arms of the national security apparatus, save and except for the regurgitation of T&TEC updates via their respective Facebook pages. The first public interview occurred when the Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales and T&TEC’s general manager Kelvin Ramsook appeared on the CNC3 News programme at 7 p.m. However at that time most of Trinidad was still without electricity and thus were unable to view television,” the committee said.
It said the likelihood of a recurrence of such an event by virtue of same method is “extremely low”.
