JPS Restores Power to 300,000 Customers Affected by Hurricane Melissa

• The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) is reporting that electricity has been restored for approximately 300,000 customers, representing 64.0% of its service base across sections of the island, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
• “This is a solid milestone, given the scale of destruction that we have all seen,” stated President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Hugh Grant, while providing an update on the restoration process during a press conference at Jamaica House on Tuesday (November 11).
• Mr. Grant reported that electricity has already been restored for more than 95.0% of customers in St. Thomas, Kingston, St. Andrew, and St. Catherine. “Right now, we’re working on the unique challenges of various customers to facilitate restoration. The good news is, there is no widespread community in these areas that are currently impacted,” he said.
• Steady progress is underway in Clarendon, Manchester, Portland, St. Mary, and St. Ann, with the restoration of critical services, including hospitals, water pumps, town centres, and key economic zones. “In St. Ann, we’re able to restore power to St. Ann’s Bay Hospital, we’re able to restore power to Ocho Rios Pier, Dunn’s River, to Ocho Rios town, also to the infirmary in Priory. This strategic restoration is not by chance; it’s intentional and aligns with our overall restoration strategy,” he said.
• However, given the scale of devastation in the western parishes, he noted that “this is much more than repair and restore – it is a redesign and rebuild of our facilities”. He also stated that landslides have caused poles and other infrastructure to be significantly damaged. As a result, rerouting some of its facilities and redesigning them to facilitate restoration needs to take place.
• The CEO indicated that power is expected to be restored in Trelawny within the week, and in Hanover and Westmoreland over the next two weeks. “We will have power in Falmouth town, Falmouth Hospital and also the pier, whereby we’re supporting the return of cruise ships to that particular pier,” he said.
• Regarding St. Elizabeth, Mr. Grant advised that power has been restored to Junction, Southfield, and several surrounding communities. “We did this by doing some creative things on the distribution system to facilitate St. Elizabeth being supplied from Manchester. There is, however, a limitation to that as we have built out in St. Elizabeth to a stage now whereby, to go further, we would need the critical high-voltage transmission to be restored. That has been significantly damaged; however, we continue to work,” he said.

(Source: JIS)