Wounds yet to heal one year after the passage of the destructive Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica

Damion Brown lost his home a year ago after it was leveled by Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in southwestern Jamaica as a Category 5 storm and is considered the worst climate disaster in the history of the Caribbean country, which is still recovering from its damage.

“I was inside the house when the hurricane arrived. I had to take shelter in my neighbors’ home,” Brown, 63, tells EFE by phone, his voice flustered as he recalls what happened on October 28, 2025, in his town of Mount Peto.

Melissa, whose category 5 strength is the maximum on the Saffir-Simpson scale, caused 45 deaths in Jamaica and damages valued at 9 billion dollars, mainly in Westmoreland, where it made landfall, and in districts bordering Saint Elizabeth and Hanover, where Brown resides.

The sexagenarian shows his spirited nature by explaining that he built a shelter “with a tarp” right on the spot where his house used to be and stayed there for four months until the organization United for Jamaica provided him with help to build “a proper structure to live in.”

Like Brown, according to data provided by Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, 24,000 families lost their homes and around 90,000 houses suffered severe damage, 682 schools and six hospitals were severely damaged, and there was damage to roads, electricity, water, and telecommunications services, equivalent to 30% of GDP, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Solidarity as a glimmer of hope

Kebre Treston, president of the organization United for Jamaica, which has helped more than 742 citizens since it was founded in 1995, believes that Andrew Holness’s government “could have done more and, to this day, continues to not do enough.”

“Many people have not yet recovered even 2-3% of normalcy. All the parishes (districts) in central and western Jamaica need help right now,” he explained to EFE.

In a social media post, Prime Minister Holness acknowledged that “for many families, the recovery process is taking too long” and assured that getting aid to them “remains a priority.”

Holness detailed that more than 118,000 households have been assessed to determine their access to aid. Approximately half have already received support to date and they expect to complete the remainder by January 2027.

For its part, the Jamaica Red Cross, with the support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), has provided humanitarian aid to more than 91,000 people this year and has invested more than 3 million dollars in multipurpose cash transfers.

“Most of our interventions have focused on Westmoreland, Hanover, Saint Elizabeth, Saint James, Trelawney, these are the geographic focus areas, but with our multipurpose cash program we have impacted health and psychosocial support, so our operation goes beyond that,” Jamie LeSueur, head of the IFRC in Jamaica, told EFE.

55% of the affected population

LeSueur detailed that Melissa affected 1.6 million Jamaicans, that is, more than 55% of the population, and that “the needs remain.”

As it enters its second year of recovery, the IFRC will focus until October 2027 on helping farmers and fishermen resume their work and assisting “individuals” in a personalized manner with 1.2 million dollars that were released last week.

“A hurricane impacts adults, but for children it is even worse. And these are long-term impacts on their development. So we have put a huge effort into psychosocial support and created 68 spaces for children,” concluded the IFRC leader in Jamaica.

Jamaica secured a $6.7 billion international aid package over three years. In addition to the need to rebuild the island, there was the importance of recovering the damaged tourism sector, which is vital to the economy as it represents the country’s main source of foreign exchange earnings.

Last April, the reopening of two other large hotels represented an important step in this direction, with Jamaican Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett asserting at the time that the industry continues its “solid recovery”.