During the exhaustive question and answer period, at the Fourteenth Annual General Meeting of the Anguilla Electricity Company Limited, on February 5, 2018, at Ellen Conference Room at La Vue Boutique Inn, Mr. Timothy Hodge thanked ANGLEC for its restoration work following Hurricane Irma.
The category 5 hurricane, of September 6, 2017, devastated most of the company’s power supply network across the island. With the diligence and hard work of linesmen from Anguilla, various other Caribbean islands and a team of Canadians, the restoration work was completed before Christmas, as was promised, much to the credit of those workers, the company, and its CEO, Mr. David Gumbs.
Mr. Hodge, Director of Social Security, and an ANGLEC shareholder, addressed the presiding Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. Gareth Hodge, as follows:
“Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that, on behalf of all the consumers in Anguilla, we sincerely appreciate the reduction in the fuel surcharge. My bill looks a lot more possible than it used to look, so I can see and appreciate the answer to Mr. [George] Kentish’s question about you generating more, but your revenues are less. That is a significant cause and we were the beneficiaries. I appreciate that.
“I also want to say that I have had the good or bad fortune to see Tortola, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, St. Martin/St. Maarten since the hurricane – and Puerto Rico as recently as a week and a half ago. Put it the way that my hotel clerk did, ‘the hurricane has put us forty years back. People are leaving in droves because the country is, basically, for a lot of people, unmanageable’. [The hotel clerk] works a fraction of the day and has to get home at daylight because she has no power and before somebody else takes over her house. The manager of the hotel doesn’t have power either. I am not talking about the people who are in the country, up in the hills and mountains. Even people living in the city don’t have power. You can see that there are places that have been energised, but the floors of buildings don’t have any lights and so forth.
“I want to say that what has happened in Anguilla is amazing. I think that the shareholders of ANGLEC, and the people of Anguilla, are to be extremely grateful. I also want to say that the companies which lent us their men – and perhaps there were women as well – who helped us to restore electricity in Anguilla, have done a marvellous job…It is obvious that they did a fantastic job.”
Mr. Hodge was applauded for his remarks which led to other statements from the floor. Ms. Karen Hodge, an employee at the National Commercial Bank of Anguilla, and a noted questioner and commentator on ANGLEC matters, said:
“I would like to join in saying thank you to the team. But I would like for you all to look at the whole exercise and those areas where you didn’t do as well as you could have, and have something in place. Going forward, you would even do far better. Personally, I was of the view, that West End should have been – not that we were leaving out ourselves – but given the hotels we 
depend on – that they should have been among the important people to be restored…
“I hope that you, and your team, sat down and looked at how you managed the whole process and see how you can improve on every aspect of the exercise. This is because, as you see, from every report, the next hurricane season doesn’t seem that things are going to get any better.
“I want to say a big thank you to the team. They did very well through some crazy circumstances and we have to appreciate that.”
