Pago Pago, American Samoa — A new shipment of poles for the American Samoa Power Authority arrived on island on Tuesday via ocean transportation. ASPA managing director, Paul Young explained that this order of poles was made sometime back before Tropical Storm Gita and that ASPA has pole inventory on island.

“We have a lot of poles in supply. Stock wise, we’re fully stocked, except for the [electric] wire,” Young told Samoa News yesterday, adding that the wire order was made a while back, but ASPA was competing for the same wire supply with other locales which recently were devastated by hurricanes — Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

“Our orders have been backlogged twice,” he said and thanked the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the American Red Cross for uplifting the ASPA order on the Red Cross chartered flight, which arrived over the weekend.

Regarding the restoration of electricity, ASPA says that as of 6p.m. Feb. 20, a total of 11,100 out of 12,000 (92.5%) customers have power now.

ASPA thanks the public’s patience as crews continue to restore power to areas still without electricity due to safety reasons that are the causing delays. ASPA customers without power, please contact 699-1234, 770-1600,770-1601 to register your name on the list for the service order.

ASPA Facebook page provides any latest development on electricity as well as the power restoration plan.

Regarding water service, ASPA has restored water to all customers including outlining villages such as Poloa, Aoa, Vatia, Onenoa,  Fagasa, Afono and the mountain top village of Aoloau. It is now focusing attention on areas with low water pressure. Report all waterline breaks, theft, and water tampering to 699-1234.