Don’t Send In the Bulldozers: Heritage Architects on How to Rebuild Jamaica’s Storm-Wrecked Historic Churches

• Architect Patricia Green urged professional surveys before any clean-up
• She warned bulldozers could scrape up material that could be reused
• Sarah Ann Hodges said some church ruins could be kept with new buildings inside
• Both pointed to years of poor maintenance as a factor in the losses

Hurricane Melissa damaged heritage churches, courthouses and schools, among them St John’s Anglican Church in Black River, St Elizabeth. In December 2025 the Jamaica Observer asked two conservation architects how the rebuilding should be done.

Patricia Green, a registered architect and conservationist, said the first step must be “a professional analysis and survey of the buildings, done by a competent heritage professional.” She warned: “My concern is that it is possible that bulldozers are going in to go and scrape up everything, and that shouldn’t happen.” Much of the material in heritage buildings can be reused, she said, adding: “that’s what we do — we salvage.”

Sarah Ann Hodges, a preservation architect and co-founder of Kingston 10 Architects, said buildings with roof damage need to be covered quickly to stop more rain getting in, and that timbers should be gathered up. “In the case of churches, there are all sorts of commemorative stones and the tiles — we need to collect all the material and not let it get taken away and used elsewhere,” she said.

Hodges set out several options. One is to consolidate a ruin and “build a new building” within it, using modern materials so that “you can [still] see what’s original from what’s new.” Another is to “build it back the way it was, but stronger, with better connections, and maybe some reinforcement within the structure.” Green said the losses could have been reduced “had we undertaken ongoing maintenance and good building practices,” and pointed out that after the 1907 earthquake many buildings were rebuilt by 1912 or 1915. “It’s just the will,” she said.

Their advice matters for every congregation with an old building. Maintenance, salvage and a heritage survey cost far less than rebuilding from nothing, and a church that loses its original stones loses part of what it owns. Hodges compared buildings to cars, which people maintain faithfully while neglecting their buildings. For churches, returnees and diaspora donors paying for repairs, that comparison may be the most useful lesson. Money spent on roofs, gutters and timber before a storm protects a church’s building, and its value, far better than an appeal afterwards.

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