Ke­jan Haynes

Trinidad and To­ba­go has sent an ad­vance team from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to Ja­maica to as­sist in the re­cov­ery fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, with an­oth­er team set to fol­low soon be­hind. 

Out­side Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad‑Bisses­sar said, “They’ve (Ja­maica) now re­quest­ed help with per­son­nel. For T&TEC, their lines are down—all their pow­er lines. This week we are send­ing a few se­nior staff first, then about 25 more in a bat­tal­ion to as­sist them. All our fo­cus is on help­ing them.”

She not­ed the gov­ern­ment is al­so mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion in oth­er Caribbean na­tions af­fect­ed by re­cent storms. “Haiti and Cu­ba now—we have to re­do our ef­forts to try to send help there as well. Cu­ba has been very bad­ly hit.”

You see what has hap­pened to Ja­maica, and all our love goes out to them. Yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) we sent off eight con­tain­ers of re­lief sup­plies. This morn­ing we sent med­ical sup­plies with Caribbean Air­lines.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said an as­sess­ment team from T&TEC ar­rived in Ja­maica on Fri­day at the re­quest of the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment. “Min­is­ter Sobers is in touch with his coun­ter­part dai­ly. They have made spe­cif­ic re­quests for as­sis­tance. The team is on the ground, and we ex­pect to send ad­di­tion­al work­ers and equip­ment in the com­ing days. At this time, it looks like five ser­vice trucks and 30 work­ers will be de­ployed.”

Trinidad and To­ba­go has pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence in re­gion­al de­ploy­ments. The lat­est was in 2024, when 22 T&TEC work­ers spent a month in Car­ri­a­cou, Grena­da, help­ing to re­store elec­tric­i­ty af­ter Hur­ri­cane Beryl.

They re­in­stalled high- and low-volt­age lines, re­placed poles, and re­paired break­ers un­der chal­leng­ing con­di­tions. In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter their re­turn, su­per­vi­sor Chabindranand Jagdeo said, “When we went there, the place looked like a fire had tak­en over. Nine­ty per cent of hous­es did not have roofs; small­er homes were flat­tened. The on­ly parts stand­ing were brick bath­rooms.”

The team worked along­side Grena­di­an crews to ac­cel­er­ate pow­er restora­tion. Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Curvis Fran­cois told Guardian Me­dia at the time that the de­ci­sion to as­sist was straight­for­ward: “If we were in the same po­si­tion, we would have want­ed help as well.” The month-long ef­fort earned let­ters of com­men­da­tion for the work­ers. Sev­er­al crew mem­bers said they would vol­un­teer again if re­quired.

Re­port­ing from the Ja­maica Glean­er puts the con­firmed death toll at 19, with more in­jured. Ja­maicans at home or abroad wish­ing to con­tribute to re­lief ef­forts can do so through the gov­ern­ment’s of­fi­cial plat­form at http://sup­port­ja­maica.gov.jm.