KINGSTON, Jamaica — Approximately 51,439 customers of the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) Company islandwide were without electricity up to Monday morning due to the passage of Tropical Melissa.

This update was given by Minister of Energy and Telecommunications Daryl Vaz during a press conference on Monday.

“At 9:00 am this morning, there were 51,439 customers without electricity, broken down as follows, 33,633 customers in the west, 65 per cent of the outages; 13,009 in central, it’s 25 per cent; and 4,797 in the east, 10 per cent. Outages are increasing with deteriorating weather and with each outage affecting on average 50 to 100 customers,” Vaz said.

He said the major cause of outages reported are trees and lines due to the high soil saturation levels.

The minister said approximately 550 people have been pre-positioned and are responding to outages as the weather conditions permit. He urged affected customers to report outages via the JPS app and social media platform.

Vaz said he has also received reports of power outages in the Corporate Area.

“And we have not had any level of rain or wind. So I did have some terse words this morning with the JPS because I told them that if that is what is going to be the norm in terms of 12 hours to respond, it’s not going to happen. It’s unacceptable,” the minister said.

He added that the power supply company has reported that there are no major incidents currently on its electricity grid but said the system is beginning to experience the effect of heightened wind and rainfall extending across the island.

“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,” Vaz said.