After Irma and Maria: Q4 2017 Found Jamaica Reassessing Its Coastal Vulnerability While the Investment Pipeline Ran On

Briefing

• Hurricanes Irma and Maria caused catastrophic damage to Barbuda, St Maarten, Dominica, and Puerto Rico.
• Jamaica was spared direct impact but assessed its own preparedness in the storms’ wake.
• Tourism arrivals remained strong as distressed travellers redirected bookings to Jamaica.
• Coastal engineers raised questions about new resort construction standards for Category 5 conditions.
• Portland Bight mangrove areas were formally assessed as critical climate buffer zones.

When Hurricane Irma tracked north of Jamaica in the first week of September 2017, the island experienced outer bands of rain and wind but escaped the direct strike that turned much of the northern Caribbean into a disaster zone. When Maria followed two weeks later and added Dominica to the list of islands facing years of reconstruction, the cumulative effect on the region was among the most devastating in Caribbean meteorological history. Jamaica’s escape was the result of geography: the storms’ tracks took them north of the island’s latitude, through the chain of smaller Caribbean islands that bore the direct impact.

The escape was not a guarantee. It was a reminder. Jamaica sits in the path of Atlantic hurricanes and has historically experienced direct strikes at intervals of decades. The question that Irma and Maria prompted, in the final months of 2017, was whether the coastal construction that the tourism boom had produced was being built to standards that accounted for the level of storm intensity those seasons demonstrated was plausible.

The Standards Question

Coastal engineers and structural consultants who examined Jamaica’s building standards in light of the 2017 season’s destruction noted that the island’s requirements for wind resistance and storm surge protection in coastal construction had not been updated to reflect the most current models of Caribbean hurricane intensity. Irma’s peak winds of 185 miles per hour sustained over the Leeward Islands produced damage that no building standard developed for typical hurricane conditions could have anticipated. The question of whether Jamaica’s coastal resorts and communities were prepared for a similar event was one that did not have a reassuring answer.

The government’s response to these concerns in Q4 2017 was measured. Consultations were convened. Technical committees were tasked. The building code was acknowledged to be under review. No new standards were promulgated in the quarter, and the resort development pipeline that was actively processing planning approvals for new coastal construction continued to operate against the standards that had been in place before Irma demonstrated their limits.

Tourism’s Unexpected Dividend

One consequence of the 2017 hurricane season that Jamaica’s tourism industry could not have anticipated was a significant boost to its bookings. Travellers with established plans to visit the islands most severely affected by Irma and Maria — the British and US Virgin Islands, St Maarten, Puerto Rico, Barbuda — redirected their reservations to destinations that had been spared. Jamaica was a primary beneficiary, with tour operators reporting a significant volume of last-minute booking switches into Jamaica properties for the peak winter season. The economic benefit was real; its circumstances, the devastation of neighbouring islands, were a reminder of the costs that coastal vulnerability imposes on communities without Jamaica’s luck of geography that year.

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