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 per cent 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).

Category Five Hurricane Melissa made landfall on October 28, unleashing catastrophic damage across multiple sectors of national infrastructure and community life.

Mr. Grant reported that electricity has already been restored for more than 95 per cent 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.

Mr. Grant added that steady progress is under way 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.

Mr. Grant added that, given the scale of devastation in the western parishes, “this is much more than repair and restore – it is a redesign and rebuild of our facilities”.

“We have seen whereby landslides have caused poles and other infrastructure to be significantly damaged and, frankly, we have to now reroute some of our facilities and redesign to facilitate restoration. The good news is, we’re making progress. Our strategy is to first restore critical services like hospitals and water pumps and town centres in these key economic zones,” he said.

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.

In St. James, Mr. Grant indicated that service was restored earlier this week to Cornwall Regional Hospital, several key National Water Commission (NWC) pumps, the Fairview Shopping Centre and community, and the Sangster International Airport.

“By the end of today (Tuesday), we will restore power to the Freeport in St. James, bringing power to the BPOs (business process outsourcing) and stimulating the economic activity in that particular parish. Since we have been here [at this briefing] this morning, power has also been restored to the Hip Strip in St. James,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Grant reaffirmed JPS’s commitment to a steadfast, strategic, and safety-focused restoration process, noting that additional timelines will be shared by the end of the week.

“We are making progress in advancing our damage assessments. In some communities, we had limited or restricted access but that is now improving, so we will only make greater progress with our damage assessments.

As we make greater progress with our damage assessments, by the end of this week, I will be giving you more detailed updates in terms of the restoration timelines in parishes and communities,” he stated.

Mr. Grant emphasised that JPS will continue to collaborate with both local and international contractors to advance the restoration effort.

“Prior to the hurricane, we brought in 71 overseas line workers. I’m pleased to share that since the passage of the hurricane, we have brought in, additionally, more than 200-line workers to help with the safe and timely restoration.

“In addition to that, we [are] also bringing in additional vehicles, bucket trucks and pole digging trucks that are expected to be here by this weekend. This will also be a key resource to help in expediting our restoration activities safely and timely,” he said.

Mr. Grant assured that teams are working assiduously to restore service to customers, adding that “JPS will not stop until we restore every community, every customer and every business.”