300 workers to be deployed to help bring back light to St Elizabeth

Some 300 workers are to be deployed by the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) to St Elizabeth as it moves to restore electricity to the parish following the passage of Hurricane Beryl.

JPS’ Senior VP Energy Delivery Blaine Jarrett says the workers – a combination of JPS employees and contractors – will be deployed over the next few weeks.

The entire parish was left in the dark following devastation by Hurricane Beryl last Wednesday.

After days without power, JPS today stated that some areas of the parish began receiving electricity early this morning. 

“We are doing everything we can to restore service to the critical facilities in St Elizabeth as soon as possible, and the Black River Hospital was our first priority. We have now restored supply to the hospital, as well as to some NWC pumps at Mount Edgecombe, Luana and Darliston,” Jarrett explained.

“Over the next few days, we will continue to focus on other critical facilities and, as we restore these, the communities nearby will benefit,” he said.

Jarrett said it will take up to a month for service to be restored to the entire parish. 

“The electrical infrastructure in St Elizabeth was extensively damaged, and it will take weeks to repair the damage and rebuild sections of the network.”

Meanwhile, JPS says the restoration efforts elsewhere continues with now more than 84% of its 692,000 customers getting back power.

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