The Bahamas Built a Real Category 5 Shelter. Jamaica Is Still Using Old Schools

• Jamaica relies on schools never built as hurricane shelters
• Even relatively new public buildings failed during Melissa
• The Bahamas opened a purpose-built Category 5 shelter
• A letter writer wants Jamaica to build the same

As Jamaica works through recovery after Hurricane Melissa, housing repairs, infrastructure rehabilitation and targeted parish programmes have dominated public attention, a Gleaner letter writer noted, but a related question has gone largely unaddressed: whether Jamaica is building the next generation of hurricane shelters, structures deliberately engineered for Category 5 conditions, rather than schools and public buildings simply pressed into emergency service.

The writer pointed to a concrete regional model already built: the Bahamas recently opened a purpose-built, climate-resilient hurricane shelter and community centre designed to withstand extreme Category 5 conditions, functioning as an ordinary community asset between storms and a hardened refuge during them. Jamaica, by contrast, relies on a wide network of designated shelters, many of them schools or public buildings never designed to absorb sustained winds, storm surge or prolonged isolation from a modern superstorm.

Melissa itself exposed the gap directly. Even relatively new public infrastructure suffered real damage during the storm, the writer noted, raising serious questions about design standards, enforcement, and long-term resilience for buildings the public assumes will hold when the next hurricane arrives. Listing hundreds of designated shelters on paper, the letter argued, is not the same as guaranteeing safety once wind speeds exceed 160 miles per hour and power, water and access roads fail simultaneously.

Government’s actual shelter preparation in the months since has run closer to inspection than new construction: St Elizabeth’s Municipal Corporation, working with the Social Development Commission, the parish health department, the Ministry of Labour and the Jamaica Fire Brigade, launched a comprehensive structural review of existing and potential shelter sites in February, aimed at compiling readiness findings for the Ministry of Local Government by April, ahead of the 2026 season. That process answers a narrower question, which existing buildings can safely serve as shelters, than the one the letter writer actually raised: whether Jamaica needs to build genuinely new, purpose-engineered shelters the way the Bahamas already has, rather than continuing to retrofit and reassess buildings that were never designed for the job in the first place.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com