Black River sees the light

WESTERN BUREAU:

Electrical power was restored to Black River Hospital in St Elizabeth on Tuesday morning, allowing the hospital and some National Water Commission facilities to resume full service.

On Monday, Energy Minister Daryl Vaz indicated that the Jamaica Public Service had given an undertaking that the hospital would be reconnected by midnight on Tuesday, while it could take a month for service restoration in other areas of the parish.

St Elizabeth was one of the hardest hit parishes by the Category 4 Hurricane Beryl last week with widespread infrastructural damage.

JPS Public Relations Manager Audrey Williams said that Black River, which incidentally was the first town in Jamaica to get electricity back in 1893, had its service restored at approximately 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

She also acknowledged that the forecast for the other sections of the parish remains dismal.

“We are not just doing repairs; we are actually rebuilding some sections of the network,” she explained.

Several former residents of the parish, who are based overseas, are pooling together resources to purchase generators to assist farmers, who are facing storage challenges.

In the lead-up to the hurricane, Lenworth Fulton, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, urged farmers to reap crops that were matured or close to maturity. However, unless they can find ways to preserve these items, they are likely to lose them through spoilage.

Adrian Frater