rebuilding after storms

Jamaica has always had a way of teaching us patience. Whether it’s waiting out a long line, watching crops grow,…

There is a particular stillness that settles over Jamaica in January. It is not silence—this island is never silent—but a…

As Melissa threatened Jamaica’s south coast in October 2025, St Elizabeth was still rebuilding from Beryl more than a year earlier. The parish’s communities, many still in partial recovery, faced a Category 5 storm with patched roofs and depleted resources. It is a pattern the country can no longer afford to repeat.

One year after Hurricane Beryl, south coast communities around Black River and Treasure Beach remain in various stages of incomplete recovery. The pattern of storm, inadequate rebuilding and renewed exposure is not a natural disaster cycle. It is a structural failure in Jamaica’s approach to coastal housing resilience.