American Samoans

A New 'Dark Ages' For

From W . G. COPPELL in Pago Pago

I found it to be an ominous sign when I opened a drawer in my room at the Americana, the international class hotel at Pago Pago and saw an old-fashioned candlestick and candle.

It was frustrating and infuriating to pay an inordinately high tariff for accommodation at what is actually only a moderate hotel and then realise that for lunch all that can be purchased are cold meat sand wiches at $2 a time.

It was irritating to grope about in an inside bathroom, totally bereft of illumination and to know that the only electric power in the hotel was servicing the main refrigerators, the front desk and the cash registers in the bar.

There was bathos in the circular sent to all the guests, entitled “Power outage”, which gave instruc tions about life in a world without electricity.

Around Pago Pago business was virtually at a standstill. Ice-cream couldn’t be had. The refrigerators were out of service. Pan-Am couldn’t attend to its passengers’ needs as its offices were in total darkness.

Most government offices seemed to close early because of a lack of light and air conditioning, and for several days students were sent home early from the high schools because of problems associated with the power failure.

American Samoan authorities take great pride in the television facilities on Tutuila but these too were not functioning and tourists could not ride the spectacular cable car route across the harbour and up to Mt Alava as the risk of being stranded midway was too high.

This was in February, and it brought to me a shattering dis illusionment at my previous beliefs in American technical expertise.

American Samoa has been ex periencing difficulties with its power supply for sometime and the locals tell of the power failures which have been a constant feature of life on Tutuila. To help meet the situation

three US Army diesel generators were installed recently. On Tuesday, February 11, two of these generators failed. The Acting Governor, Frank Mockler was reported as saying, “An underground cable connecting the two generators exploded and serious damage was caused to the power switch boards”. Mockler said there were indications that “the installation of the Army generators hadn’t been altogether proper”.

In this episode of the Pago Pago power saga, troubles came in threes.

On February 13 the Satala No 2 generator malfunctioned early in the day and the harassed authorities then realised that the Satala No 3 gener ator was out of operation for main tenance.

As the Samoa News reported “Mockler said he can’t imagine how all these things have happened to the Tutuila power system”.

In its editorial of Friday, February 14, the Samoa News took the Ad ministration to task, saying, “Ameri can Samoans left with no major generator in service just a hodge podge of minor generators coupled in unholy . . . and sometimes still unproductive . . . wedlock. But even the most incompatible marriage partners have some chance of suc cess if they get a little help and pro fessional guidance. It is a trifle dis turbing to hear that the late-night sleepies apparently caught up with a power-plant engineer the night of No 6’s demise else the large gener ator might still be in operation”.

If the government does stay in the power business it might be worthwhile to consider looking for more qualified and experienced in dividuals to manage power opera tions. Otherwise, these long-term temporary solutions may remain a real pain in the socket.

Perhaps the most swinging com ment came from Togotaeao Nafanua, a Samoan with a spinning head who wrote in his letter to the editor of Samoa News, “Our power problem is straneously a pain in the rear”.