After Hurricane Beryl devastated Jamaica’s grid last year, officials at the island’s sole utility vowed to fortify it. But the company’s initiatives were only in the planning and early implementation stages when Hurricane Melissa hit as a Category 5 storm on Tuesday, according to research group BloombergNEF.
Officials don’t yet know the full extent of the storm’s damage and it could take days, maybe weeks, to conduct a comprehensive damage survey from the strongest known storm to hit Jamaica. According to early reports, there were blackouts over almost 80% of the country.