Hurricane Irma Notes

Hurricane Donna Cat. 4 September 4, 1960
Then 35 years later
Hurricane Luis Cat. 4 September 5, 1995
Then 22 years later
Hurricane Irma Cat. 5 September 6, 2017

Anguilla recently had a near miss with an above Cat. 5 hurricane. A near miss in this case meant that all of our electrical grid was destroyed. The storm took the roof and sometimes the entire building  of many homes, businesses and churches. Large buildings with a big room and a large galvanized roof really suffered. Old houses were destroyed. These old houses had been around for a hundred years. We took a tour and it was clear that if the house had any wood for support it was rotten and termite infested. On some of the newer old houses they created a berm of sorts around the edge of the galvanized and it held it in place but if the galvanized was exposed on the ends even if the roof was new that was a good chance the wind was going to get under it and rip it away. There are crumpled bits of galvanized all over the island.
Anguilla got the north wall of the storm, generally the dry wall with stronger wind. The eye of the storm went right over St. Martin/Maarten. The island has a big population and lots of buildings, not all of them built to withstand a hurricane. They suffered a lot of damage and loss of life. Anguilla had lots of damage but only one person died, he refused to leave his house and it fell on him. Our biggest concern is the fact that we lost the entire electrical grid. Many poles were destroyed along with any equipment that was on them.

After Luis I waited 3 months for power. 
I had two generators and the ability to siphon water from my cistern upstairs to my area downstairs and even make hot water using a solar bag and the hose. It was fine for one person but we now have 6 people in our compound and moving water around would be a chore nobody wants to do.
We did not wait for power after Irma, we had power through the storm and we are now servicing 4 households. That is because we have off-grid solar.
We are one of 4 households on the island that have some form of off grid solar. We have a big robust system and did not lose our roof mount solar. A few panels were damaged from flying debris but the system stayed on the roof and once we replaced the panels we continued making power. We are supplying all of our needs including washing and drying clothes for us and our neighbour. A long extension is enough for him to power his fridge, have some lights and a fan.
Our off-grid system has been in place since April 2015. Since then we have not felt a single power outage. If the grid goes down we know nothing about it. We are careful, we know when to do heavy load stuff like using the clothes dryer or the big convection oven but other than that we just behave like we are on the utility grid. There is no noise, no additional expense of fuel but since we have the old fashion lead acid batteries we must maintain them. It is really not a big deal. Now there are maintenance free lithium batteries and at some point we may switch over to those. They are smaller and require nothing.

The rest of Anguilla is experiencing a different reality. 
We also sell generators. A variety of sizes and fuels. We sell, install, repair and maintain many generators. Most of them require constant maintenance.  People are generally offended by generators, they want the power but don't want the hassle. Generators are nasty and smelly. You have to haul diesel or gasoline in your car and then fill your generator a lot. Oil changes are a must. You have to start them unless you have an automatic start but those get expensive fast. They also are notoriously unreliable. If you forget about adding oil you can destroy your machine. Little things turn into big problems. Every time something goes wrong you not only have to pay for it, you have to get it to the guy that can fix it. Did I mention the noise? If you are the only one in your neighbourhood with a generator everyone hates you. If everyone has one the place ends up sounding like dueling generators. Many parts of Anguilla will be using generator power for months to come. It is frustrating and stressful. We are passing out free solar lights to folks with no power. Generous people that don't live here donated so we could get boxes of these lights. Now at least the house is not dark. But they have no ability to keep food cold, water is a nightmare and no fan. And it is hot and still and probably will be for another month. Many of them don't have transportation so how do they get water and food. On Anguilla people tend to help people. Small community means smaller problems but it is easy to see why a place with a large population could have a crisis situation for so long.

Hurricane Gonzalo Oct. 13, 2014
We were all just minding our business when hurricane Gonzalo showed up and really messed with Anguilla. It wasn't even a hurricane when it arrived, and although we prepared we were not that concerned. Well it built itself into a hurricane right on top of us and destroyed a lot of utility poles and equipment. It left us without power for a week or more. We had been experimenting with solar and had some panels and batteries. Chris fixed up a small solar system, propped the panels up in the driveway and ran a cord into the house. We used it to keep the fridge running and have a fan at night. It was lovely. We had a generator but it was costing a fortune to run it and even though it is quiet, it is still noisy and you simply can not run it all the time. We had a great idea, it blossomed into building our own off grid solar system to supply all of our power. We wanted to just do grid tied solar but the utility was against it, they were so against it that they would charge us as much to export the power as to import the power. So we decided we would make the investment, (it is not cheap) and supply our own power. We never looked back. Every month we don't pay the utility we are getting paid back for our system. Gonzalo happened in October and by April we were off grid.

My Idea
Since Anguilla has a small population and many single family homes, I think that folks could install a simple 2 kw system on their homes. It might not supply the entire house but it would make them self reliant in the event of a power outage. If people would consider purchasing a small solar system now, installing it on their house and use it to run a constant load such as the refrigerator and some ceiling fans and lights, when we get a power outage situation, those items would continue to run. The items could be wired into the solar system directly. They would run on them all the time even when the utility is working. The rest of the house would continue to run on the utility. This would solve the generator problem. Instead of a generator to run a much needed fridge and lights, the solar system would do that. The solar panels could be removed in the event of a storm and replaced when the danger had passed. If you did buy a generator you could buy a much smaller one and just use it to run a water pump and charge the batteries if it is a cloudy day, solar only works when the sun shines but the charged batteries work all the time. In time you might consider a larger system but 2 kw will do a lot to help you after a storm or a power outage.
Just a thought.