KINGSTON, Jamaica— Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the Government is moving quickly to complete the damage assessment phase so that Cabinet can meet and determine priority areas in response to the damage caused by the passage of Hurricane Beryl.

Holness was speaking following an aerial and ground tour of sections of southern Jamaica on Thursday.

The prime minister said from an aerial view, he was able to look at Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon and several constituencies in St Elizabeth along the coast before landing in Treasure Beach.

“I was able to get a very broad perspective of the damage. So we had some amount of coastal impact based upon the wave actions and storm surges but not to the point where we would say it was significant,” Holness said.

“We saw some flooding in low-lying areas but it was expected. We saw several roofs lifted and at one point I was actually counting the number of roofs and between Treasure Beach and Great Bay and another area we counted about 100 roofs lifted,” he continued.

He added that a further assessment on the ground saw further damage from the Category 4 storm which made landfall on Wednesday. Holness said while the damage was extensive on the St Elizabeth coast, he would not classify it at the highest level of severity.

The Prime Minister said he saw fallen trees and light poles, damaged shops, while adding that there is the potential economic fallout as a result of this and the human suffering.

Holness said the major challenge being faced now is the restoration of electricity in the parish.

“The challenge, based upon the completion of the tour which I am seeing and getting a better understanding of, would be the restoration of electricity because so many poles have been damaged and that is going to require extensive teams of linemen to come in. I am not certain what our capacity is in that regard. We will have to try and mobilise people from overseas to do that but we are going to put together all our efforts to ensure that we can return electricity in the quickest possible time,” Holness said.

“It is very important that that be done because that could be the greatest danger so we don’t want to have a break in the public utilities because that can foment public disorder so we will be working very hard to have that repaired,” he continued.

The prime minister said following the completion of the assessment a list of the needs of the public will be curated, but with limited resources, Cabinet will meet to determine what the priorities are.