Christopher Burgess | Power and water: Backbone of productivity and competitiveness

Jamaica’s electrical and water infrastructure is too fragile, exposed, and outdated to be restored in the old way. The scale of the damage shows that reconstruction requires redesign for future climate conditions. It would be a mistake to pour billions of dollars into reconstruction without upgrading the design assumptions.

Electricity and water systems are the backbone of national productivity, with some of the highest economic multipliers. When these systems fail, entire sectors – tourism, health, education, and commerce – shut down simultaneously, amplifying economic losses.

The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) warned that inadequate infrastructure is already constraining tourism growth and undermining investor confidence. As JHTA President Christopher Jarrett noted, failing roads, water, and power systems are not inconveniences but weaknesses that raise costs and erode Jamaica’s competitive advantage.

Jamaica’s infrastructure reconstruction under the NaRRA should be judged by whether it is rebuilt to fail less frequently and therefore protects economic and social life under a harsher climate. In a region where severe hurricanes are becoming almost three times as frequent and more destructive, resilience demands redesign to protect and strengthen productivity.

REDESIGNING A FRAGILE GRID

The overwhelming scale of the damage in the west points clearly to the need for redesign in reconstruction. With 40,000 poles damaged and 73% of the transmission system downed from Hurricane Melissa, up from 21,000 poles in Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, the scale of vulnerability is clear. In the words of JPS Vice-president Blaine Jarrett, there was “no opportunity for restoration”, what was required was a redesign.

For too long, post-storm restoration has been talked about as though replacing damaged poles, wires, and hardware with similar materials were sufficient. Hurricane Melissa showed that it is not. The old network, across the western parishes, proved too vulnerable, with uprooted poles, cascading failures, weak soils, difficult access, and the sheer force of Category 5 conditions. In that context, restoration without redesign for more intense conditions would be deferred failure.

Resilience requires technical innovation: stronger poles, shorter spans, rerouting to more stable ground, and ‘stop’ structures, to reduce domino collapse to updated Category 5 design standards.

Electricity has one of the highest economic multipliers. Each hour of outage disrupts manufacturing, tourism services, and healthcare delivery, compounding economic losses far beyond the cost of repair. Investing in a stronger, more resilient grid therefore delivers system-wide economic returns by reducing downtime after major events.

Almost weekly, the JPS CEO, Hugh Grant, together with Blaine Jarrett and Ricardo Case, gave regular updates from the field in coveralls rather than three-piece suits. It was clear that the rebuilding was being supervised in the field to strengthen resilience. Jamaica needs much more of this hands-on leadership mindset. We cannot continue to measure success by how fast crews return to the field if the system remains vulnerable.

That is why the real lesson from Hurricane Melissa is that the scale of the disaster forced the company to admit that parts of the old grid had reached their limits. That honesty is important, because resilience begins with acknowledging when an old system is no longer fit for purpose.

COMPOUNDED ECONOMIC LOSSES

Interdependence of fragile power, road and drainage infrastructure weakened the water sector. The water sector was not hit by one problem, but by several at once: power loss, turbidity, damaged pipelines, damaged access roads, and facility disruption. In the western region, 95 National Water Commission (NWC) facilities were affected, and, with little or no standby power, the impact on customers was almost immediate, forcing many to rely on trucked or river water. About 66 per cent were impacted by loss of electricity and 18 per cent by high turbidity. It was a systems failure.

The financial consequences were serious. The NWC reported approximately J$2.1 billion in total losses from reduced production, with a big part of that from the closure of the hotel sector affecting NWC income. This demonstrates that sectors are more economically interconnected than previously recognised. When water fails, tourism suffers. When tourism closes, utility revenues weaken. When electricity fails, water production collapses. These are not separate sectors, they are one resilience ecosystem.

To the NWC’s credit, the utility did not present resilience as a matter of simply trucking water and waiting for normality to return. Its response pointed toward a broader resilience programme: standby and mobile generators, better procurement arrangements for emergency materials, mobile treatment solutions, and risk financing. That is the correct direction.

The country needs stronger backup systems, greater redundancy, and better protection of critical assets to keep systems functioning when one layer fails. These investments carry a cost, but that cost must be weighed against the far greater cost of lost productivity.

ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY

Both the water and electrical networks vulnerabilities and response point to the need for institutional willpower under  the NaRRA ,to finance redesign that strengthens productivity. The technology is important, but Jamaica must be willing to finance redesign and prioritise building to higher standards.
Both utilities pointed to the same conclusion: the cost of resilience must be weighed against the cost of lost productivity. Jamaica will repay the loans taken for reconstruction. It therefore has a duty to ensure the highest economic return from innovative technology that strengthens productivity, and that borrowed money is not used to recreate old weakness. Public investment must now be tied to redesign, expert oversight, and systems that are demonstrably stronger than what existed. 
Dr Christopher Burgess is a registered civil engineer, VP of engineering for the Jamaica Institution of Engineers, climate scientist, land developer, and managing director of CEAC Solutions. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com