Cost to NWC from Hurricane Melissa to top $10 billion

The financial impact of Hurricane Melissa on the operations of the National Water Commission (NWC) is expected to exceed $10 billion, the Government has disclosed.

The NWC, which is owned by the Government, supplies piped water to 78 per cent of households and businesses in Jamaica with over 551,000 customers.

The estimate covers damage, disruption, lost revenues, reduced collections and the cost of relief and restoration, the minister with responsibility for water, Matthew Samuda, revealed on Thursday during a special media briefing at Jamaica House.

“The impact to the National Water Commission’s operations of Hurricane Melissa is indeed extensive,” Samuda said.

He said Cabinet has been apprised of all the issues facing the NWC and has already received a restoration and relief plan.

The plan, he said, covers clearing access to sites, temporary repairs to raw water transmission and distribution pipelines, installation of standpipes in communities without electricity, trucking of water, office repairs and the purchasing of standby generators.

The first phase of the restoration plan is estimated to cost over $3.2 billion, Samuda disclosed.

Over the next four to six months another $6.9 billion will be spent on the other phases of the NWC's recovery plan on items that cannot be procured using the emergency methodology, he added.

Samuda disclosed that 496 NWC systems impacted by the hurricane remain “disrupted” while 267 systems are now active, doubling what obtained last week.

Despite the challenges, he said water has been restored to 76 per cent of NWC customers nationally.

Some 130,000 NWC customers remained without piped water up to early Thursday.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on October 28 as a category five system with winds of up to 180 miles per hour, leaving wide-scale destruction.

Forty-five people have been confirmed dead and 13 have been reported missing, authorities have disclosed.

Nine deaths remain under investigation.

- Livern Barrett

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