Last Friday, Jamaica faced a total islandwide power outage that quickly sparked rampant online speculation, with unsubstantiated conspiracy theories linking the blackout to the recent port visit of the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and a concurrent fire at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) headquarters at Up Park Camp. These unfounded claims have been formally dismissed as ludicrous fake news by the country’s top energy and transportation official, who has clarified that severe weather-triggered system failure is the sole confirmed cause of the outage.
Speaking at a joint press briefing with leadership from Jamaica Public Service (JPS), the island’s main utility provider, on Saturday, Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications, and Transport Daryl Vaz addressed public confusion directly, pushing back against the viral misinformation that spread rapidly across social media platforms in the hours after the outage. Vaz emphasized that the outage was a straightforward technical failure within JPS’s energy infrastructure, rejecting outlandish claims that tied the blackout to the U.S. warship’s presence. He noted that the conspiracy theories were so baseless that he declined to repeat most of them publicly.
JPS President and CEO Hugh Grant echoed Vaz’s statement, explaining the sequence of events that led to the total grid shutdown. Grant confirmed that unseasonable inclement weather damaged five critical transmission lines connected to major substations in Jamaica’s Corporate Area. The initial line failure triggered a cascading system collapse that cut power generation across the entire island, forcing a complete shutdown of the national power grid.
The 1,092-foot nuclear-powered USS Nimitz, the lead vessel of its class and one of the largest active warships in the world, docked at Kingston Freeport Terminal last week as part of its 11th Southern Seas deployment, a regional tour focused on building maritime security partnerships and fostering diplomatic goodwill. According to the U.S. Embassy in Kingston and Jamaican government officials, the port call underscores the deepening security cooperation between the U.S. and Jamaica, a partnership expanded during the Trump administration focused heavily on countering illicit maritime activity in the Caribbean.
Even before the blackout, the carrier’s arrival sparked public unease across Jamaica, as the visit coincided with severely strained U.S.-Cuba relations. At the time, the U.S. had ramped up economic sanctions against Cuba, including a strict fuel blockade, formally indicted former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, and top U.S. officials had publicly labeled Cuba a “failed state.” To calm public anxiety, Jamaican Foreign Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith had already publicly assured citizens that the USS Nimitz was not part of any covert U.S. plan to threaten or launch military action against Cuba. But the coincidental timing of the islandwide blackout just days after the carrier’s arrival rekindled speculation and fueled conspiracy theories.
A second concurrent event — a fire that broke out Friday night at the Up Park Camp JDF headquarters barracks — added more fuel to viral misinformation, with social media users claiming the blaze was also tied to the power outage. This claim was also rejected definitively by both Vaz and Grant. Vaz pointed out that the USS Nimitz had already departed Jamaica for Florida, en route to New York, by 8 a.m. Friday, hours before the blackout occurred. He noted that while Jamaican culture often embraces lively speculation around unexpected events, the coincidental timing of the three events — the carrier visit, the base fire, and the blackout — does not indicate any hidden connection. The JDF confirmed in an official statement that multiple local fire units responded rapidly to the Up Park Camp blaze, and the fire was fully contained and extinguished with no reported injuries. Vaz added that fires are a common occurrence, and this one was no exception, stressing that there is zero evidence linking it to the power outage.
As of Saturday’s press briefing, JPS was working to restore full power across the island after the cascading system failure, with officials updating the public on restoration progress while working to stem the spread of further misinformation about the outage’s cause.