With just a few days before Christmas, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) says it remains on track to meet its commitments to have electricity restored by Christmas to most communities left in the dark following Hurricane Melissa.

“We are on track with our Christmas commitments. Our commitment to the parishes of St Catherine, Kingston and St Andrew, St Ann, St Thomas, St Mary and Portland is that we would restore all customers by Christmas except for the handful that we won’t be able to restore because of access issues,” said Winsome Callum, director of corporate communications at JPS.

Callum added that fewer than 50 customers in these parishes may remain without power due to access challenges.

For Clarendon, the power company pledged to restore electricity to 95 per cent of its customers by Christmas, a target Callum noted has already been met. Additionally, she said Manchester is also on track to meet its 95 per cent restoration target, while St Ann is targeted to reach 80 per cent, and Trelawny 75 per cent, by Christmas.

Winsome Callum

“With the other four parishes, St James, Hanover, St Elizabeth and Westmoreland, we made some very specific promises because these parishes were pretty badly damaged. A lot of rebuilding has to be done. So it’s difficult to give a percentage restoration. We therefore targeted the commercial centres, towns and critical services,” Callum explained.

According to Callum, restoration has been completed in key areas of St James, including the Elegant Corridor and surrounding communities.

Meanwhile, in Hanover, Lucea Town, Sandy Bay Health Clinic and Sandy Bay Town are on track to have electricity restored by Christmas. In St Elizabeth, the Black River Hospital and Treasure Beach locations are also on track to be restored by Christmas.

For Westmoreland, she explained that work is focused on West End Negril and the continued build-out of Savanna-la-Mar and neighbouring communities by December 25.

As of Tuesday, December 16, power had been restored to 84 per cent of customers islandwide following Melissa.

Despite the restoration progress, outage levels remain high in the hardest-hit parishes, including Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, St James, Trelawny and Hanover.

A JPS worker conducts restorative work post-Hurricane MelissaPhoto: JPS

“Westmoreland is the parish that is most at risk because of the level of devastation. In Westmoreland, 88 per cent of the customers are still out. This is followed by St Elizabeth with 50 per cent out, St James with 43 per cent out, Trelawny with 39 per cent out, and Hanover with 36 per cent out. So these are the five parishes that were the hardest hit,” Callum added.

Callum told Observer Online that one of the biggest challenges to full restoration is the extent of the damage to the transmission network, which she noted goes far beyond downed poles and visible power lines in communities.

“The damage is not just to the lines that we see around us. It’s really the transmission lines, the transmission system, which includes substations and the high-tension towers that have really experienced significant, extensive, catastrophic damage and that is where the rebuild is,” she explained.

Additionally, Callum pointed to access as another major challenge in reaching some communities due to mud and waterlogged terrain. As a result, she said workers are sometimes forced to resort to manual labour to transport equipment.

A Jamaica Public Service team at work continuing restoration efforts. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

“In some cases we’ve had really dangerous situations where the heavy equipment is literally sinking in the mud and it’s just too heavy for the terrain. So in those cases we’ve had to go real manual with the execution. You find that where a rebuild might require six transmission poles that would have gone up on a truck in one trip, because of the difficulty of the terrain, we have to take the poles off one by one on smaller vehicles. Then the men have to take the poles to their final destination on their shoulders manually,” she added.

Further, Callum noted that acts of vandalism and theft of utility wires have also slowed restoration efforts.

“We have had a couple of cases of persons stealing the wires that are being used to restore the supply to customers, and we’ve also had a case where they damaged the wires. I think they probably were trying to cut it up to take it and then they left it and the wire couldn’t be reused. So it set back the restoration quite a bit,” Callum said.

Additionally, she said motor vehicle accidents are also causing repeated outages, as collisions continue to knock down poles in areas where power has already been restored.

“Prior to the storm, the statistics showed that we were having over three accidents per day across the island that were causing outages to our customers. Now that we are slowly returning to normal post-hurricane, we’re finding that the trend is continuing. It’s frustrating when a community has been restored and a motor vehicle accident takes them out and you have to redeploy resources to restore again,” Callum said.

With an additional 200 overseas linemen set to be deployed to the hardest-hit parishes, Callum said the company has a target of restoring power to 90 per cent of customers islandwide by January 15. That is 30 days after the arrival of the overseas crew.

“We are welcoming over 200 additional line workers who will be helping to expedite the reconstruction and rebuilding of sections of the network to fast-track the restoration. We’re onboarding a group of nearly 70 who came in [Monday],” Callum said.

“Another group of 44 came in at 1 [Tuesday], and [Wednesday] we’re expecting a group of almost 120. They’ll be working through the holidays, including Christmas, to get customers back on as quickly and as safely as possible,” she said.