US Virgin Islands residents go days without power or water as bills pile up

Residents on St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands have gone nearly four days without electricity or running water, leaving families unable to cook, flush toilets, or refrigerate medicine.

The outage has also fueled anger at leaders, residents say, who have offered too little communication.

Here's what to know

In a TikTok video, community reporter Monique at Black Belt Daily (@blackbeltbabe) said major equipment failures at the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority left St. Thomas and St. John without power and water for nearly four days, prompting schools and government offices to shut down.

Monique quoted a St. John resident identified as Gabrielle, who said, "Residents cannot cook on their electric stoves; toilets cannot be flushed. We are resorting to showering with a bucket of water. People will soon begin to lose their lives if we continue to live in these conditions."

Monique also said the utility "continues to send bills to customers despite the lack of service," while one commenter wrote that the problem has been "going on for literally DECADES."

More background

Commenters said the trouble wasn't confined to the two islands featured in the video. One wrote, "It's not only STT and STJ, St. Croix also has issue with power outages and ridiculously high power & water bills."

Other commenters portrayed the current outage as part of a much longer decline. One Virgin Islander wrote, "After the hurricane, things really went downhill for us," and another said residents have been "experiencing daily outages for a while now."

In the comments, one person said friends working as nurses and firefighters had seen emergency rooms and fire stations packed with people who depended on powered oxygen machines and refrigerated insulin. That account appeared in the comments and was not independently verified in the video, but it described how utility failures can quickly become life-or-death emergencies.

One commenter who thanked Monique for sharing the video wrote that people in the territory "tend to get overlooked."

What's being done?

According to Monique, the Water and Power Authority said crews had been working continuous shifts to install "Critical parts" and restore service after the equipment failures.

Residents said they are looking for more than another temporary repair, Monique reported. Many in the community said they no longer trust stopgap fixes that keep failing and want a lasting answer for the islands' fragile power and water systems.

Monique said residents also criticized Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. for not declaring a state of emergency or making a public address during the crisis.

Residents are demanding accountability for how utility and federal money is being used. Several commenters argued that years of high bills and repeated outages point to a deeper infrastructure problem that patchwork repairs alone will not solve.

Where can I learn more?

The Virgin Islands outage echoes utility breakdowns that have left other communities dealing with high bills, water disruptions, and emergency concerns. 

• In Kansas, BPU customers questioned outage charges and credits as estimated bills kept arriving.

• In Groveland, residents pushed back after three water outages collided with a proposed rate hike.

• In Lanzarote, a grid failure knocked out power and shut down drinking-water plants.

• In Maryland, a treatment-plant power outage forced 2 million people to cut water use.

• On Oahu, officials warned water is at risk when storms trigger power failures.

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