No Major Incidents on Electricity Grid – Minister Vaz

The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) reports there are no major incidents on the electricity grid, even as the system is beginning to experience the effects of heightened wind and rainfall.

Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Minister, Hon Daryl Vaz, made the disclosure during Monday’s (October 7) press briefing at the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) in Kingston.

“There were areas in Portland and St. Thomas that had outages but crews were unable to respond immediately because of unsafe weather conditions. These are being addressed along with other reported outages across the island,” he said.

At 9:00 a.m. this morning, there were 51,439 JPS customers without electricity. Of this number, 33,633 customers in the west accounted for 65 per cent of outages; 13,009 in central parishes (25 per cent); and 4,797 in the east (10 per cent).

Minister Vaz said outages are increasing with deteriorating weather conditions, with each outage affecting on average 50 to 100 customers.

The major cause of outages are trees on lines due to the high soil saturation levels.

“There are approximately 550 persons pre-positioned and are responding to outages as weather conditions permit,” he informed.

Where necessary, Minister Vaz encouraged JPS customers to utilise the MYJPS app and the emergency line 888 CALLJPS: (888) 225- 5577, (888) 935-5577, or MYJPSONLINE on all social media platforms.

The JPS mobile app can be downloaded from the apple store or google play store

“I would recommend that everyone does that so you can at least report (any issues),” he advised.