NWC Establishing Temporary Supply Stations in Communities

The National Water Commission (NWC) is establishing temporary water supply stations in communities that remain without potable water following the passage of Hurricane Melissa.

Corporate Public Relations Manager at the NWC, Delano Williams, said that the initiative is aimed at providing safe drinking water, free of cost to affected persons, while the agency continues its restoration activities.

“We’ve come up with an approach where, for those persons that we have not yet been able to restart our pumps, we are now putting in what we call temporary water supply stations. These are a combination of putting tanks at strategic points or simply installing filling standpipes at the plant itself,” he said.

“At our Lucea plant, we’ve installed multiple standpipes where persons can come and catch water. At our Luana plant in St. Elizabeth [and] our Black River plant, it’s a similar approach. We had a number of them also in the St. James area [and] we are now at a point where we may be able to retire them and move further inland to areas that we do not yet have piped supply,” he indicated.

Mr. Williams was speaking at a briefing at the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), located at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) in Kingston, on Monday (November 24),

He said that trucking continues to critical institutions such as schools, health centres and police stations.

“We are also identifying community centres, which we can safely and reliably deliver water, to help [persons] to access water without having to go to sources that may be questionable,” he said.

The NWC has completed the restoration of 81.4 per cent of its customer base of some 551,000 customers.

“For the western parishes, St. Elizabeth, Hanover, Westmoreland, St. James, Trelawny, and parts of Manchester, we are trending just about 57 per cent of 170,000 customers. The larger customer base is on the eastern side [of the island], which is substantially at about 90 to 91 per cent restored,” he informed.

Mr. Williams said that 19 per cent or approximately 102,000 customers remain without water supply.

“Based on our assessment, it has to be a mixture of targeting the areas that are still without power supply, the areas where have damaged infrastructure, and the areas where we are still having limited access,” he said.