NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (August 14, 2024)- The Honourable Premier Mark Brantley has expressed gratitude that the island of Nevis was spared any major damage or disruption to utility services during the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto on Tuesday, August 13.

“Now that Tropical Storm Ernesto has passed we are assessing the damage and thus far reports are that we’ve had some minimal damage such as fallen trees, persons suffering minor property damage; certainly no deaths and no bodily injuries, so I believe we should be truly grateful to God for sparing us the worst yet again.”

The Premier thanked the “hard-working public servants” who ensured that the island was in a state of readiness and who braved storm conditions to make certain that services were restored where there were outages.  

“I take a moment to congratulate our public services- the Water Department especially- they stayed on throughout the storm. NEVLEC had some interruptions but those were solved quickly. Power for most of the island stayed on and for the parts that were affected NEVLEC was able to report as early as last evening that 99 percent of the island was restored to power,” he said, also extending commendation to the Solid Waste Management workers who were out ensuring garbage was collected on time during the bad weather.

He also thanked the private sector for giving their employees the opportunity to attend to their own family and personal storm preparations.

Premier Brantley credited the island’s resilient infrastructure and competency of the various agencies and departments for Nevis weathering the storm as well as it did.

“I think our response shows our resilience and certainly the resilience of the infrastructure thus far and so we hope to continue to build better as we move forward, knowing that we are in a region that is high risk for storms of this nature. I think preparedness is critical if we are to weather the worst of these occurrences.”

Following the All Clear alert from disaster officials crews from the Nevis Electricity Company (NEVLEC), Public Works and Communication, Water Department, and Fire and Rescue have been patrolling Nevis to ensure the road network is clear and that any issues with respect to faults in utility services are swiftly rectified.