JPS says 76 customers still without power after Hurricane Melissa restoration push

Jamaica Public Service says its long-running restoration exercise after Hurricane Melissa is close to an end, with 76 customers still without electricity nearly seven months after the Category 5 hurricane damaged the national grid.

The update was given during the National Resilience Dialogue Series hosted by the Higher Education Task Force for Disaster Resilience. JPS said the storm initially left 77 per cent of its customer base without power after major damage to poles, transmission lines and substations across the island. The worst-hit areas included St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover, Manchester and St. James.

JPS Senior Vice-President Ricardo Case said the remaining outages had fallen sharply from more than 200,000 customers. “This morning we had just about 76 customers out of power, with about 74 of those customers in Westmoreland and two customers remaining to be restored in St. Elizabeth,” he said.

The company said the destruction caused by Melissa was greater than that from Hurricane Beryl and represented the biggest restoration effort in JPS history. Case said more than 40,000 poles were damaged during Melissa, compared with about 8,000 during Beryl. He also said 81 per cent of the island’s transmission lines either developed faults or went out because of winds exceeding 185 miles per hour.

The restoration work involved 470 linesmen, including about 300 overseas workers from the United States and Canada who joined local crews.

Telecommunications operators were also hit hard. Digicel reportedly lost 70 per cent of its mobile network and took about three months to complete service restoration.

With another hurricane season ahead, JPS said it is now moving to strengthen the grid through composite poles, expanded foam anchoring and selected underground infrastructure. The resilience dialogue brings together Jamaica’s four major universities, including UWI, UTech, CMU and NCU, to support recovery and disaster planning.