Nine thousand homes are still without electricity and BELCO say it could be more than two weeks before the island is back to normal.

Thirty-six linesman from the Caribbean arrived from the Caymans last night but BELCO spokeswoman Linda Smith-Wilson boosting road crews to more than 150.

But she could not say if they would start work immediately because they needed to be briefed on safety and orientated.

She said only five out of 75 main line circuits were still down but the real battle was getting the branchlines back on.

"There's extensive tree damage," said Mrs. Smith-Wilson.

She said some staff were doing shifts of 14 hours and more but BELCO had to be careful staff did not become overworked and risk their own safety.

"There's been a few cases of people doing 24 hours shifts. But we are not going around telling them to work 24 hours when they are doing electrical work."

The public had been welcoming and grateful in most cases, bringing hot food and drinks in some cases when crews reached their neighbourhood.

"There was a woman in St. George's who brought fish and peas and rice. A lot of people are bringing them drinks."

However she said some were trying to prevent workers from leaving their streets after seeing them fix up their neighbours.

Mrs. Smith-Wilson said BELCO were putting everyone they could out on the streets but not everyone was technically capable of doing the major jobs.

"We have smaller crews doing some small jobs, things that we can do in a matter of minutes. "Some customers are seeing they are at someone's house and they are trying to stop the trucks leaving their neighbourhoods. That's a concern of ours."

And she said many customers wanted a time frame for when their houses would be fixed which wasn't always possible.

"People want to know if its going to be one week or two weeks. They are saying `If it's two weeks I am out of here'. "I am trying to find a way of answering that.

"There are areas where there are extensive access problems or extensive tree damage that will take longer. I can't say to anyone we will be in Smith's parish on Tuesday."