Exercise patience, PM Mottley urges

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley is pleading with Barbadians to exercise patience as utility companies get back up and running following the passage of Hurricane Elsa, yesterday.

She did so while giving the country the All Clear during a press conference at the Department of Emergency Management (DEM).

From as early as 7 a.m. when the impact of the weather system intensified, most households lost water, electricity as well as telecommunications services.

The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) executed a precautionary shutdown of all their pumping stations, however it was advised that once the All Clear was given, they would all be brought back online, and customers were asked to report any emergencies.

“Fortunately because we have put in place a programme to be able to have generators at the various pumping stations, and reservoirs we expect that over the course of the next 24 hours that three-quarters of those installations which have generators or access to the other 12 which we would have rented this week – that we should be able to have the majority of those pumping stations, according to the BWA, back up and running,” Mottley said.

The Prime Minister also at that time reported the latest situation with BL&P, which had crews in the field assessing the damage done by the hurricane.   

“There are some poles that are down… We do know that while the Barbados Light and Power was able to maintain at least about 30 per cent of power for most of the morning, they eventually lost it in the middle of the day and there is only a small amount of power back on in Bridgetown where most of the cables are underground, but they are working assiduously to be able to get electricity back up,” she assured, also noting that the telecommunications companies are also working to get services restored.

Mottley went on to describe the impact of Hurricane Elsa on Barbados as “significant” and said that persons would therefore expect inconvenience and absence of critical utilities for some time.

“In the next few hours, we are going to try to work… When we get the full assessments tomorrow, we will be in a better position to be able to speak to the country as to what they can appropriately expect going forward.

“Quite frankly, I think that our utilities will be ‘spotty’ for the most part of the next two, three days at the very least, if not longer. And I say so without having a comprehensive report from any of the utilities, so it may well be longer. But what I do know is that I am asking Barbadians to exercise patience… We are not in a Hurricane Gilbert-type situation, but we do have significant damage and it will take time for us to get things back up,” the PM said. (TL)