Jamaica races to restore power after islandwide blackout hits overnight

Power returned in stages across Jamaica on Saturday after an islandwide blackout cut electricity to homes, businesses and essential services overnight, exposing how quickly a single grid failure can paralyze a country that depends on uninterrupted power. Jamaica Public Service Company said the outage began just after 9 p.m. Friday, June 5, and by Saturday morning roughly 500,000 of its nearly 700,000 customers were back online.

The utility said its preliminary assessment linked the all-island blackout to intense lightning activity, and Hugh Grant, the company’s president and chief executive officer, described the collapse as an unexpected cascading effect. JPS said detailed investigations were underway as crews pushed to restore service across the island, which has a population of about 2.8 million people.

Energy Minister Daryl Vaz, who oversees energy, transport and telecommunications, responded in unusually blunt terms, calling the outage unacceptable and promising to keep the public updated. His criticism underscored the political pressure that follows a nationwide failure in a country where electricity disruptions are often associated with severe weather, not a systemwide collapse on a clear night.

The blackout hit far beyond living rooms. JPS said the outage was nationwide, affecting transportation, communications and essential services as well as businesses and households. In a country heavily dependent on tourism and daily commercial activity, the loss of power highlighted the fragility of the grid and the scale of Jamaica’s reliance on one electricity distributor serving just under 700,000 customers.

The event also revived memories of Hurricane Melissa in October 2025, when JPS said it carried out damage assessments on 100 percent of transmission lines, substations and distribution feeders. The company said its backup systems worked as expected during the latest blackout, but the islandwide shutdown renewed scrutiny of maintenance, storm preparedness and the resilience of the power network itself.

By Saturday, restoration efforts were well advanced, with the Jamaica Information Service reporting that 99.6 percent of customers had been reconnected to the grid. Even with power returning quickly, the blackout left a clear warning: in Jamaica, one failure in the electricity system can ripple through the entire economy in minutes.