KINGSTON, Jamaica — President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), Hugh Grant, says while he anticipates power outages due to Tropical Storm Melissa later this week, he expects the recovery to be much quicker than what was obtained after Hurricane Beryl in July last year.

Among other things, JPS has pre-positioned key personnel around the country, including 30 linemen from regional countries who have significantly boosted the JPS fleet, Grant said.

He was speaking Thursday morning at a Jamaica House press briefing, which provided an update on the country’s preparedness for the approaching storm.

“We have boots on the ground right now that we brought in from our peer Caribbean utilities to help in regard to line workers and storm response.

“We are expecting in the order of 60 line workers to augment and bolster our internal workforce. By order of magnitude, that’s upward of 30 per cent. That right there is game-changing. That is what best in class looks like. We’re not waiting on a storm to arrive, wait until the aftermath and then determine resources. We’re utilising our models, brought boots on the ground from day one so once it is safe to do so, we will be out there responding,” said a confident Grant.

He said JPS has also activated its incident command structure which will see the light and power company work “24/7 nonstop to safely and timely restore power to our customers”.

With the country facing weeks of rainfall, the CEO highlighted that the ground is saturated. He said, “Saturated ground combined with increased rainfall in the order of what I’m hearing, six to 12 inches, plus wind sustained in the order of 50 miles per hour, increases the likelihood of power outages.”

“I’m standing here to let you know the lights are going to go out so let us plan for the lights going out. With that being said, we’re committed, we’re positioned, we’re resourced and we stand ready to respond,” he added.

— Lynford Simpson