AFTER three months and six days in darkness, residents of Potsdam district in St Elizabeth erupted in cheers last Tuesday when they flipped their switches and saw the familiar flicker of light, finally restored after being without the utility since the passage of Hurricane Melissa last October.

With electricity now back on, many residents say they are relieved to be free of the high cost of generator fuel and are looking forward to simple comforts they once took for granted, such as storing their leftovers and stocking their refrigerators with meat — out of their capacity during the prolonged outage.

“You know how long I want [to enjoy] a Sunday-Monday [dinner]? Trust me, I’ll tell you, I have to eat off everything from Sunday,” a smiling Damian Keane told the Jamaica Observer during a visit to the community last Wednesday.

“Sunday-Monday” refers to the beloved practice of eating leftovers from Sunday’s traditional dinner on Monday. It is often said that the meal is tastier and more flavourful after sitting overnight.

“We’re happy and we’re grateful because to be in the dark at night, we couldn’t manage, to be honest,” he added.

Following the passage of Hurricane Melissa, approximately 77 per cent of Jamaica Public Service (JPS) customers were without electricity. Customers in Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, St James, Hanover, and Trelawny were the hardest-hit.

According to the power company, as of February 5, approximately 4 per cent of customers remain without power as restoration activities continue.

Up to 24 hours after electricity was restored to sections of Potsdam district, Keane remained in disbelief, half-expecting to be plunged back into darkness at any moment.

“As much as the light come back, mi nah plug in my fridge until about Friday night [February 6] because I don’t trust it yet…me ago plug in mine Friday and, hopefully, we don’t have outages every minute, because that me afraid of,” he said, sharing that after the power returned it went for a couple minutes before it was back again.

“The only problem we have around here now is that we need some more street lights on the light posts. It’s dark. It is not a violent area, but some street lights would be good for us,” said the Potsdam resident.

Chrishane Gayle said he broke out in cheerful song when power was restored, joined by others in the district who were equally happy about their electricity being restored.

“We jump up and down and feel good because we’re happy for the light. I’m glad say it came back because we did a go through a whole heap. It is not easy. Every night we were in darkness,” he said.

“We never have any generator so we had to beg [others to] charge we phone and all them something there…you don’t want to do that forever. We did have to buy meat today and cook it later; we couldn’t buy and put it in any refrigerator because we didn’t have a fridge, but we good yah now,” he said, smiling.

Lasmin Davis shared that she would often buy her meat as frozen as she could get it on Saturday evenings, then leave it to defrost overnight. In the morning, she would season the meat and cook it, careful to only prepare the amount needed for dinner that day.

“Now I can stock up on meat and cook whatever I want… As the light came back I plugged in my refrigerator and make it gwaan cool. I soon go buy some things to stock it,” she told the Sunday Observer.

A resident who provides telecommunication and electrical services for community members, Everoy Foster, said he lost significant business due to the prolonged power outages following the hurricane. He raised questions about the length of time it took for power to be restored, noting that during Hurricane Beryl all the utility poles in the area were downed but in the case of Hurricane Melissa, the majority of utility poles remained standing.

“No light post nuh drop and we have to wait so long? It’s really bad. I have solar at my house, but for the majority of the community it did bad because they never have any,” he said.

“The least I could do was send out some free Wi-Fi signal throughout the community so that people could connect with their loved ones,” he added, noting that he purchased Starlink access, a satellite-based, high-speed, low-latency Internet service, before the storm hit.

Foster was, however, grateful that power was restored because he can now get his business up and running.

He shared that following the passage of Hurricane Beryl in July 2024 he lost more than 100 customers and approximately 50 customers due to Hurricane Melissa.

With the popularisation of Starlink he said he fears he will lose even more business, but he has got a few calls from potential customers since the power has been restored, which gives him hope.

Gregory Bloomfield, a businessman who owns a small shopping complex in the area, said the power outage also severely affected his business and saw him operating at a loss. He shared that he spent $6,000 per day to keep the generator going for his shops — a hefty cost that ate into his profit margin.

When the Sunday Observer visited the area, the hum of the generator could still be heard. He explained that moments after the light returned last Tuesday a transformer in the area was damaged. He said JPS officers came that same day and assessed the damage, promising to have it fixed as quickly as possible.

Gregory Bloomfield says he spent $6,000 per day on fuel for his generator during the three-month power outage.