BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — As if to underline the challenge facing locals, there was a power outage within minutes of the start of the monthly municipal corporation meeting here Thursday.

And to the grim amusement of councillors, electricity came back just over an hour later as Mayor of Black River Richard Solomon was wrapping up and about to adjourn.

Just over a week since the passage of Hurricane Beryl, which devastated sections of Jamaica’s south coast, Black River is among the very few places in St Elizabeth to have had electricity restored.

With the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) — which was unrepresented at Thursday’s meeting — under increasing pressure, the mayor made it clear that he was for “partnership” and had no plans for a fight with the electricity provider.

“I want to extend an olive branch [to JPS],” Solomon said, against the backdrop of strong criticism down the years from by St Elizabeth’s councillors targeting the utility company.

Noting catastrophic damage to infrastructure, including JPS’s during the storm, Solomon welcomed restoration of power to the Black River Hospital and the parish capital earlier this week.

His “wish” he said was for JPS’s work to move “a little faster”.

Councillors and representatives of the St Elizabeth Health Department pointed to the virtual shutdown of National Water Commission (Nwc) piped water because of the electricity shutdown.

Solomon told the meeting he was aware that the JPS was giving priority to NWC pumping facilities. Meanwhile, he said, the water company was actively trucking water to facilities most in need, including hospital and health centres.

Water was also being trucked to the municipal corporation which in turn was using its own vehicles as well as contractors to distribute water to communities.

“We know it [trucked water] is still not enough but we crave the patience of citizens,” Solomon (New Market Division – JLP) later told journalists.

In the absence of electricity and piped NWC water, councillors noted that St Elizabeth residents already heavily dependent on rainwater catchment tanks will be even more so now.

The danger, they said, was that some catchment tanks were at greater risk of contamination in the aftermath of the storm, rendering purification and chlorination imperative.

Health reps assured councillors that health teams were in the field carrying out such exercises.

Chief Public Health Inspector Everod Lewis observed that the NWC would need to strategise appropriately in case electricity is out for an extended period.

And pointing to the rising danger of mosquitoes and related diseases in many communities, Lewis said his department needed the electricity provider “to act a little faster in short order…”

Regarding the passage of the hurricane, Solomon heaped praise on the police and the fire brigade for their leadership role as first responders during the storm.

He spoke of a fire crew which rushed a woman about to give birth to hospital at the height of the storm.

Citizens were also among the first at the crack of dawn after the storm armed with their chainsaws to remove fallen trees and clear roads, the mayor said.

Assistant Superintendent Mark Edwards of the St Elizabeth fire services spoke of the faithful service of his team, including firefighters who returned home to find the roofs of their homes had been blown away by Beryl.