KINGSTON, Jamaica — As Jamaica Public Service (JPS) moves into the critical final phase of power restoration following Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, the company is rebuilding the island’s transmission network with major focus on St Elizabeth.

The update was shared during a meeting between the JPS leadership team and councillors of the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation on Wednesday, January 14.

The transmission system, which carries high-voltage electricity from power plants to substations across the island, sustained extensive damage when the hurricane made landfall on October 28 last year.

President and CEO of JPS, Hugh Grant, disclosed that in recent weeks hundreds of line workers have been deployed to restore transmission belts across the western parishes, with just over 200 assigned to the breadbasket parish.

“There is an order to how our remaining customers will be onboarded,” Grant said. “We first have to fix the transmission lines, which take power to the substations. Once the substations are energised, they step down the power to a voltage that can be safely distributed to communities.”

Grant noted that in St Elizabeth alone, more than 20 miles of transmission lines are being rerouted, repaired or rebuilt to restore electricity to remaining sections of the parish.

“Several spans of our transmission lines run through hilly and mountainous terrain,” he explained. “It is labour-intensive and time-consuming, but our crews have been working 24/7 to get the network up and running, because the energisation of these lines is critical to our restoration strategy in the west.”

While acknowledging the progress made, the JPS CEO cautioned that some sections of the transmission belt will take longer to complete.

“The fact is that many of our transmission lines are located in remote areas,” Grant said. “There are times when teams experience challenges getting heavy-duty vehicles and equipment to the worksites, but they have been finding creative ways to get the job done.”

He stressed that restoring power to customers remains the company’s top priority. “Some of our customers have been without electricity for more than two months now and, quite frankly, they are our priority,” Grant assured.

The meeting, chaired by Mayor of Black River and Chairman of the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation, Councillor Richard Solomon, concluded with councillors receiving updates on the restoration status of their respective divisions and plans to reconnect additional customers.