The Jamaica Public Service has stated that its teams will continue to restore power in communities being affected by adverse weather as long as it is safe.

JPS employees and local contractors are being supported by the overseas line workers who have already been deployed to several parishes.

There has been an increase in reports of outages across the island as a result of deteriorating weather conditions influenced by hurricane Melissa.

There has also been an increase in the number of outages caused by people cutting down trees inappropriately and causing them to fall onto power lines.

President and CEO Hugh Grant urged persons to avoid contact with power lines following reports of an electrocution, when a billboard being removed made contact with a power line.

Mr. Grant said since Sunday, over 52,000 customers have been impacted by outages.

So far JPS has restored service to more than 30,000 of those affected and work continues to connect the remaining customers.

However, in some cases, restoration is being hampered by access challenges caused by difficult terrain and heavy rain.

The JPS boss cautioned that with weather conditions worsening, at some point the company will no longer be able to respond to individual customer reports.

Mr. Grant said the company will not compromise the safety of team members and they will be back in the field carrying out restoration work as soon as it is safe to do so.