Hurricane Melissa

At the groundbreaking for a $9.6 billion, 800-home development in St Thomas, the NHT and Government made resilience the rule: every house must withstand a category five hurricane.

More than six months after the Government promised 5,000 container homes through the NHT for Melissa victims, the Opposition is asking why so few have actually been delivered.

Publication date: 5 May 2026 | Covering: April 2026 Monthly Briefing Bank of Jamaica holds policy rate steady at 5.50…

Treasure Beach has mounted a strong recovery six months after Melissa, with beaches restored and tourism operations reopened. The contrast with Black River’s longer rebuild illustrates how community social capital and economic structure shape recovery outcomes, and what the south coast’s property market signals to investors.

The NHT’s six-month mortgage moratorium ends on 30 April, resuming payments for more than 36,500 accounts across seven parishes. Brompton in St Elizabeth receives an automatic three-month extension. For many homeowners still repairing damaged properties and managing reduced incomes, the return to normal repayment is arriving before their recovery has.

Six months after Melissa, business owners across the western parishes are still waiting for insurance payouts. The delays are exposing structural weaknesses in Jamaica’s property and commercial insurance market that the Financial Services Commission and the government are being pressed to address before the next hurricane season.

Publication date: 5 April 2026 | Covering: March 2026 Monthly Briefing Bank of Jamaica holds policy rate at 5.50 per…

With Melissa’s damage bill equivalent to more than half Jamaica’s GDP, serious voices are asking whether the country should pursue legal action against major greenhouse gas emitters whose actions powered the storm. The argument is substantive, the obstacles are real, and the question of who funds Jamaica’s US$10 billion rebuild cannot be answered without engaging it.

The prime minister has formally positioned Black River’s redevelopment as a national template for climate-responsive planning, to be applied consistently across every coastal and low-lying community in Jamaica. The ambition is the right one. Whether the execution matches it will determine the value of the lesson Melissa forced the country to learn.

Kingston, Jamaica — 10 March 2026 Months after Hurricane Melissa tore across Jamaica as one of the most powerful storms…

Publication date: 5 March 2026 | Covering: February 2026 Monthly Briefing Bank of Jamaica cuts policy rate by 25 basis…

When others were assessing losses, the founders of Level 8 bakery and lounge in Black River were planning expansion. Their decision to open a new business four months after Melissa, drawing more than 100 job applicants, is the kind of private sector confidence signal that the town’s recovery urgently needs more of.

Patience in planning Black River’s rebuild is warranted. But patience cannot mean silence on specifics, and the rebuilt town must carry the memory and the lessons of Melissa into its design, not just its structural specifications. A restored Black River should be worthy of what stood there before the storm, and honest about what the storm took.

Kingston, Jamaica — 1 March 2026 Recent global projections placing Jamaica’s real estate market on a steady growth path must…

Homeowners in the NHT’s Estuary scheme in St James, still displaced four months after Melissa, describe waiting too long for peril insurance, grants and clear answers from the trust. Their experience reveals the gap between Jamaica’s well-designed post-disaster housing instruments and the reality of how they reach individual homeowners in crisis.