Following a widespread island-wide power outage that disrupted water access for tens of thousands of Jamaican households, Water Minister Matthew Samuda has confirmed that full water service will be restored to all remaining affected customers by Tuesday.
In an exclusive interview with Observer Online on Monday, Samuda provided the latest progress update on recovery efforts. As of 8 p.m. Sunday, just three water facilities — one distribution system in the parish of Manchester and two treatment plants in St Elizabeth — still remained offline, after the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) blackout knocked out water infrastructure across the country. Samuda explained that these remaining outages are tied to ongoing power restoration work by JPS, with joint teams from NWC and JPS continuing on-site repairs to bring the facilities back online Monday. He projected all work would be completed by Tuesday, leaving no households without water service as a lingering effect of the blackout.
The power outage, which struck last Friday, left an estimated 65,000 households — around 12% of the National Water Commission’s (NWC) entire customer base — without running water by 2 p.m. the following Saturday. As of Monday, just 2,000 NWC customers still remained without service.
Calling the cascading service disruption an unfortunate event, Samuda used the update to outline the Jamaican government’s ongoing work to build long-term resilience for the country’s water sector against power outages. He noted that power failures triggering water service disruptions are not unique to Jamaica, explaining that the water sector is inherently the most energy-reliant part of public infrastructure, making it the first to be affected when power grids go down.
To address this vulnerability, the Jamaican government has invested more than $1 billion JMD in backup generator infrastructure across the water network since Hurricane Burel struck. Samuda explained that these generators automatically activate to keep water systems running during power outages, reducing widespread disruptions. The government also continues to prioritize a long-term transition to more sustainable, independent power sources for water infrastructure, a process that is already underway.
Samuda added that the government remains fully committed to reaching its resilience goal: ensuring 70% of the country’s water distribution network can maintain service during power outages. He noted that the full rollout will take a few more years, constrained by available budget and cash flow, but that the policy commitment to improving infrastructure resilience remains firm.
“We will continue to invest until we achieve that full resilience, certainly within 70 per cent of our distribution network. But that will take another couple of years, just based on cash flows. But the policy commitment has already been made. We cannot go ahead of what we are able to earn,” Samuda said.