Liberty Caribbean ready for hurricane season

Lib­er­ty Caribbean says it is ful­ly pre­pared for the 2026 At­lantic Hur­ri­cane Sea­son and has strength­ened its net­works and emer­gency re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ties across the re­gion fol­low­ing the im­pact of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa in Ja­maica last year.

The com­pa­ny, which op­er­ates Flow, Lib­er­ty Busi­ness and BTC, an­nounced its state of readi­ness as the hur­ri­cane sea­son of­fi­cial­ly be­gan on June 1.

Lib­er­ty Caribbean Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Inge Smidts said the ex­pe­ri­ence of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa re­in­forced the im­por­tance of re­silient com­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture through­out the Caribbean.

“Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa re­mind­ed us once again that con­nec­tiv­i­ty is far more than tech­nol­o­gy. In mo­ments of cri­sis, it be­comes a life­line for fam­i­lies, busi­ness­es, emer­gency re­spon­ders, and gov­ern­ments,” Smidts said.

“The lessons from that ex­pe­ri­ence have fur­ther strength­ened our re­solve and ac­cel­er­at­ed our in­vest­ments in net­work re­silience, op­er­a­tional pre­pared­ness, and re­cov­ery ca­pa­bil­i­ties across the re­gion. We re­main com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing our cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties can re­ly on us when it mat­ters most.”

The telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider said it has spent the past year mak­ing strate­gic in­vest­ments to strength­en its net­works and im­prove dis­as­ter re­silience in sev­er­al mar­kets.

In Ja­maica, those in­vest­ments in­clud­ed en­hance­ments to its mo­bile net­work, ex­pand­ed spec­trum ca­pa­bil­i­ties, im­proved trans­port di­ver­si­ty, strength­ened in­fra­struc­ture, ad­di­tion­al back­up pow­er sys­tems and oth­er re­dun­dan­cy mea­sures de­signed to im­prove re­li­a­bil­i­ty and speed up re­cov­ery ef­forts fol­low­ing se­vere weath­er events.

The com­pa­ny al­so con­duct­ed sim­u­la­tion ex­er­cis­es, emer­gency re­sponse drills, fu­el and lo­gis­tics plan­ning, and cross-func­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion ac­tiv­i­ties across its op­er­at­ing mar­kets to en­sure teams can mo­bilise quick­ly if need­ed dur­ing the hur­ri­cane sea­son.

Smidts said Lib­er­ty Caribbean re­mains fo­cused on build­ing more re­silient sys­tems ca­pa­ble of sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties be­fore, dur­ing and af­ter emer­gen­cies.

“Our teams have worked tire­less­ly to mod­ernise our in­fra­struc­ture, strength­en op­er­a­tional readi­ness, and im­prove how we re­spond dur­ing emer­gen­cies. While no net­work is im­mune to ex­treme weath­er events, our fo­cus re­mains on build­ing stronger, smarter, and more re­silient sys­tems ca­pa­ble of sup­port­ing the Caribbean through dis­rup­tion and re­cov­ery alike,” she said.

The com­pa­ny is­sued its pre­pared­ness up­date as fore­cast­ers from the Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion fore­cast a be­low-nor­mal At­lantic hur­ri­cane sea­son this year.

Ac­cord­ing to NOAA, there is a 55 per cent chance of a be­low-nor­mal sea­son, a 35 per cent chance of a near-nor­mal sea­son and a 10 per cent chance of an above-nor­mal sea­son.

Fore­cast­ers pre­dict be­tween eight and 14 named storms dur­ing the sea­son, which runs from June 1 to No­vem­ber 30. Of those storms, be­tween three and six are ex­pect­ed to de­vel­op in­to hur­ri­canes, in­clud­ing one to three ma­jor hur­ri­canes clas­si­fied as Cat­e­go­ry 3, 4 or 5 sys­tems.

Smidts said Lib­er­ty Caribbean's role ex­tends be­yond pro­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices.

“We un­der­stand the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with serv­ing the Caribbean. Our com­mit­ment ex­tends be­yond con­nec­tiv­i­ty alone. It is al­so about sup­port­ing the re­silience of the com­mu­ni­ties we serve and stand­ing be­side them be­fore, dur­ing, and af­ter times of cri­sis,” she said.

The com­pa­ny al­so en­cour­aged cus­tomers and busi­ness­es across the re­gion to re­view their hur­ri­cane pre­pared­ness plans and stay in­formed through­out the sea­son.