A policeman directs traffic at the Oxford Road/Knutsford Boulevard intersection in Kingston last night after an islandwide power failure caused the traffic lights to go out. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

A power cut yesterday evening plunged the entire island into darkness minutes after six o' clock leaving Jamaica Public Service (JPS) customers bewildered as the lights flickered on and off for seconds before eventually going out.

Last night JPS corporate communications manager, Winsome Callum, said a system failure resulted in the islandwide blackout, but she was not immediately in a position to say exactly what had caused the massive failure.

She said, however, that the problem appeared to have originated in St Catherine at the Tredegar substation.

"Preliminary indications are that the source of the problem is from the Tredegar station in St Catherine," Callum told the Observer at press time, adding that JPS customers were gradually being brought back online.

In the meantime, residents related their experiences with the sudden outage that also resulted in late evening traffic snarls across the Corporate Area.

"The light flickered in and out before there was a total blackout," Kayann Powell, a Corporate Area resident told the Observer last night.

The tale was the same in St Catherine and as far away as Montego Bay.

"When I saw my lights blinking, I was wondering what the hell was happening. I only realised that it was a power outage when I went outside and saw total darkness," a resident of the rural St Catherine community of Riversdale said.

A port worker heading home from work said there was chaos at the Three Miles/Spanish Town Road intersection as impatient motorists tried to force their vehicles through.

"It was not a pretty sight," he said. "There has always been delays at the intersection, but this evening it was much worse."

There were also reports of disorder at the Hope and Trafalgar roads intersection as well as along Eastwood Park Road where motorists were already subjected to delays resulting from work being carried out to facilitate the opening of the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre.

In July 2006 the country was plunged in a similar unscheduled, islandwide power outage that resulted in the then government calling for investigations by a team of professionals from Canada into the cause.

Not satisfied with the reasons given by JPS, the services of the Canadian experts were requested to conduct an independent investigation.

The consultants were also asked to propose long-term corrective measures which should be implemented by JPS to prevent another islandwide or widespread power blackout.
But in August 2007 the island experienced another extensive outage causing customers in several parishes to suffer inconvenience.