One year after Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica is still living under blue tarps
A year ago, Hurricane Melissa came ashore in south-western Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, the strongest ever recorded to hit the island. It killed at least 45 people in Jamaica and tore the roofs off well over 100,000 homes. On Wednesday, 28 October 2026, Jamaica marked the first anniversary. The main roads are mostly clear and Montego Bay’s hotels are open. But drive into the hills of Westmoreland or the flat lands of St Elizabeth and the colour of recovery is still blue: tarpaulins stretched over broken rafters, held down with stones, waiting for a roof that has not come.
The anniversary brought a blunt admission. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said he was “not satisfied” with the pace of the rebuild and acknowledged that some families were still sleeping outside. Then, on Friday 30 October, the United Nations called on donors, banks and businesses to help small traders in the worst-hit towns. A year after the strongest storm in Jamaica’s history, the emergency is over. The recovery is not.
At a glance
What happened: One year after Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica as a Category 5 storm on 28 October 2025, killing at least 45 people, the UN appealed on 30 October 2026 for help for small businesses in the affected towns.
Why it matters: Only about half of the 118,000 households assessed for repair grants have been paid, and 2,500 modular homes bought for families who lost everything have barely reached them. The damage bill tops half of Jamaica’s yearly economic output.
What happens next: The government promises 90 percent of assessed households paid by December and the rest by January 2027, with a new oversight committee due to report publicly.
The storm that flattened the west
Melissa made landfall in St Elizabeth on Tuesday, 28 October 2025, with winds of 185 miles per hour. Category 5 is the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and no storm that strong had ever hit Jamaica. Westmoreland, where it came ashore, was worst hit, along with St Elizabeth, Hanover, St James, Trelawny and Manchester.
Within a week, the prime minister told Parliament that satellite and drone surveys showed more than 116,000 buildings severely damaged. By mid-November, the disaster agency ODPEM counted 156,000 damaged homes and 24,000 destroyed. It also badly damaged 682 schools and six hospitals, knocked out roads, power, water and phones across the west, and drove more than 25,000 people into shelters. In all, it affected about 1.6 million Jamaicans, more than 55 percent of the population, according to the Red Cross. Across the Caribbean, it claimed 95 lives.
A damage and loss assessment led by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and Jamaica’s Planning Institute put the total cost at J$1.95 trillion, about US$12.2 billion, or 56.7 percent of annual economic output — more than four times the damage caused by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. An earlier World Bank estimate of physical damage alone was US$8.8 billion.
A year on, the blue tarps remain
Twelve months later, the picture is split in two. The tourist areas have bounced back: the debris is mostly gone from the main roads, Montego Bay’s hotels are open, and two large hotels reopened last April. Away from the resorts, the rebuild has moved far more slowly.
In July, the mayor of Savanna-la-Mar estimated that up to 40 percent of houses in eastern Westmoreland still had no roof. In September, the area’s MP, Dayton Campbell, put the share of damaged homes still under tarpaulins at 40 to 50 percent. The shelters emptied fast, but empty shelters did not mean housed families: many moved in with relatives or went back to damaged houses. Nine months on, at least 60 people were still living in eight shelters in Westmoreland, some of them in schools.
Many homes were destroyed because of what they were built with: nationally, about a quarter were mainly wood, rising to about 60 percent in Hanover and roughly two-thirds in Westmoreland.
The housing rebuild: two programmes, two speeds
The government’s housing response has run on two tracks: ROOFS, which gives families cash and materials to repair their own homes, and modular houses for families whose homes were destroyed or stood on land too dangerous to rebuild on. One has moved slowly; the other has barely moved at all.
ROOFS — the Restoration of Owner or Occupant Family Shelters programme — pays J$75,000 for minor damage, up to J$200,000 for major damage and up to J$500,000 for severe damage, mostly as building materials. Payments started slowly — only about J$115 million out by early February — then picked up to close to J$11 billion by late August. Only about J$1 billion more has followed since, taking the total to roughly J$12 billion.
By April 2026, assessors had completed 113,565 household assessments: nearly 18,000 homes severely damaged and more than 42,000 with major damage. On the eve of the anniversary, Holness acknowledged that only about half of the 118,000 assessed households had been paid, and allocated another J$9.65 billion, targeting 90 percent by the end of December and the rest by January 2027.
The modular homes have fared worse. About six weeks after the storm, the government committed to buying modular units, and the National Housing Trust signed an emergency contract worth J$3.1 billion with China’s Jiangsu Zhenhuai Construction Group for 2,500 foldable units, although a minister later told the Senate the total cost was J$4.6 billion. Each unit needs a site, a concrete base, water, sewage and power. By August, 1,500 units were on the island, hundreds in storage. In July, Rocky Meade, the permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee he could not say how many had been handed to victims. Contracts for the first 268 Shelter Recovery Programme homes were signed only on 3 September, worth J$1.05 billion, due within 12 months. At Shrewsbury in Westmoreland, 20 of about 50 planned homes have been erected, with no move-in date announced. “I, as a minister, am not pleased with the progress of this project,” said Robert Montague, the minister responsible for settlements.
About 12,000 families were first judged severely affected, but only about 2,500 are now eligible for a modular home. Officials say the list was cleaned of duplicates and people who could repair with ROOFS grants. But no public breakdown explains where the other 9,500 families went.
Why it is taking so long
Officials, opposition MPs and aid workers agree on the main obstacles, but disagree on how much of the delay was avoidable.
Land is the first problem: about 45 percent of Jamaica’s 900,000 land parcels have no title, and in Savanna-la-Mar, 86 percent of household heads owned their homes but only 23.9 percent owned the land beneath them. The government will not build on land a beneficiary cannot show a right to use, and Reverend Norbert Stephens of the United Church says some families have been shut out because the land is still registered to relatives who died generations ago.
Procurement and permits are the second. Holness put it plainly: “between the logistics, the contracting, the permitting, procurement, it is as if no one cares that it’s an emergency.” Safety rules are a third obstacle: ODPEM says modular units will not go in highly vulnerable locations, so new land must be found and, in some cases, whole communities moved. In Parottee, the government wants to move the low-lying fishing village about 10 kilometres inland to Luana, but many residents are rebuilding on the shoreline anyway.
Then there are the donations. The Auditor General’s report in May found that only 1.8 percent of cash donations to ODPEM had been spent by late February — J$26.2 million out of J$1.44 billion — that 27.8 percent of roofing supplies lacked proper delivery records, and that three of four roofing contracts went to suppliers without valid registration or tax compliance certificates. It could not verify 421 reported roof repairs. Unspent donations have since been redirected into foundations and utilities for modular homes, and total donations have reached about J$1.7 billion.
The money: insurance, aid and the bill
Jamaica entered the storm better insured than most small states. Its World Bank catastrophe bond paid out in full — US$150 million — and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility paid a record US$91.9 million. Government spending on the response and recovery has reached about J$84 billion. EFE reported that Jamaica secured a $6.7 billion international aid package spread over three years.
Private insurance has helped those who had it, but most did not have enough: insurers had paid J$10.37 billion on residential claims by the end of September, and the Insurance Association of Jamaica says about 95 percent of residential properties are underinsured. The slow rebuild is also reshaping the housing market in the west. Many of the homes Melissa destroyed were among the cheapest in the country, and a J$500,000 ROOFS grant can patch a roof but cannot rebuild a house.
Small businesses and the UN’s new appeal
Homes are only half the story. On Friday 30 October, the United Nations called on donors, financial institutions and the private sector to help small business operators in the towns affected by Melissa. After a recent visit to Black River, the main town of St Elizabeth, UN staff found some stores open and shoppers on the main street, but many business owners struggling to resume operations because of the damage to their properties.
UN Resident Coordinator in Jamaica, Dennis Zulu, said the situation in Black River showed how much work was still needed. “Emergency relief has largely given way to recovery, and recovery needs far more than the UN can provide,” he said. He called for grants, credit and guarantees to let small businesses and market traders reopen, and praised the government for creating the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority, known as NARRA.
Aid agencies are now planning a second year of recovery. The Jamaica Red Cross, with support from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, has helped more than 91,000 people this year and invested more than $3 million in multipurpose cash transfers. Its head in Jamaica, Jamie LeSueur, said Melissa affected 1.6 million Jamaicans and “the needs remain”. The Red Cross will focus until October 2027 on helping farmers and fishermen resume work, with $1.2 million released last week, and it has created 68 spaces for children.
The faces behind the numbers
Damion Brown, 63, lost his home in Mount Peto, Hanover. “I was inside the house when the hurricane arrived. I had to take shelter in my neighbours’ home,” he told EFE by phone. He lived in a tarpaulin shelter on the spot where his house had stood for four months, until the charity United for Jamaica helped him build “a proper structure to live in”. Its president, Kebre Treston, believes the government “could have done more and, to this day, continues to not do enough”: “Many people have not yet recovered even 2-3% of normalcy.”
In Barrett Town, St James, Sonia Dihnam, who uses a wheelchair after a stroke, was still sleeping under a tarpaulin six months after the storm, Project HOPE reported in April. In Waterworks, Westmoreland, 74-year-old Glenville Forrest, who cannot walk, received a small container home in July, nine months after his wooden house was destroyed. In Parottee, Windell Daley told reporters this week that he has received no help while neighbours were paid.
Sprint icon Asafa Powell, who has donated new houses to victims, described the destruction to Sky News: “My heart is just crying every day when I see the videos. It doesn’t do it justice.” He had driven through Montego Bay, Westmoreland and St Elizabeth to deliver aid.
What happens next
The next test is the government’s own timetable: 90 percent of assessed households to have received ROOFS grants by the end of December, the rest by January 2027, and the first 268 Shelter Recovery Programme homes due within 12 months of their September contracts. Work at Shrewsbury continues without a published move-in date.
Scrutiny is about to become more formal. The Jamaica Reconstruction and Resilience Oversight Committee, chaired by the economist Peter Blair Henry, has promised quarterly public updates and access to project data. Its first report should answer what the past year has not: how many families have a roof, how many have a home, how many are still waiting, and when each can expect help. In September, Dayton Campbell proposed in Parliament that every approved family should know when work will begin. A year after Melissa, many still do not.
Frequently asked questions
When did Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica?
Melissa made landfall in St Elizabeth on Tuesday, 28 October 2025, as a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 185 miles per hour — the strongest storm on record to strike Jamaica.
How many people died?
At least 45 people died in Jamaica and 95 across the Caribbean as a whole.
How much damage did the storm cause?
A UN-backed assessment put the total cost at J$1.95 trillion, about US$12.2 billion, or 56.7 percent of Jamaica’s annual economic output. An earlier World Bank estimate of physical damage alone was US$8.8 billion.
Why are so many families still under tarpaulins a year later?
Missing land titles, slow procurement and permits, rules against rebuilding in unsafe areas, and slow spending of donations. Only about half of the 118,000 households assessed for repair grants had been paid by late October 2026.
What is the government promising now?
Holness has allocated a further J$9.65 billion for repair grants, targeting 90 percent of assessed households by the end of December 2026 and the rest by January 2027. A new oversight committee chaired by Peter Blair Henry is due to publish quarterly public updates.
What did the UN ask for on 30 October 2026?
The UN’s Resident Coordinator, Dennis Zulu, called on donors, financial institutions and the private sector to fund grants, credit and guarantees so small businesses and market traders in Black River and other affected towns can reopen.
Conclusion
A year after Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica has cleared the roads and reopened the hotels, but it has not yet rebuilt the homes. The money exists in large part: insurance payouts, a catastrophe bond, aid and billions in grants. What has been missing is speed — in paying grants, in putting modular homes on the ground, and in telling families when their turn will come. The government’s new targets and the oversight committee’s promised reports will show whether the second year of recovery moves faster than the first. For the families still living under blue tarps, the anniversary was not a moment to look back. It was a reminder that they are still waiting.
This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.
Sources
- https://jamaicainquirer.com/un-calls-for-financial-support-for-small-business-operators-in-towns-affected-by-hurricane-melissa/ (Jamaica Inquirer, 30 October 2026)
- https://news.jamaica-homes.com/2026/10/28/hurricane-melissa-one-year-victims-still-waiting-for-homes/ (Jamaica Homes News, 28 October 2026)
- https://deultimominuto.com/en/international/wounds-yet-to-heal-one-year-after-the-passage-of-the-destructive-hurricane-melissa-in-jamaica/ (EFE via De Último Minuto, 30 October 2026)
- https://convoyofhope.org/response-updates/one-year-after-hurricane-melissa-families-embrace-the-future/ (Convoy of Hope, 28 October 2026)
- https://www.pulsesports.ng/story/my-heart-is-just-crying-every-day-asafa-powell-describes-aftermath-of-hurricane-melissa-destruction-in-jamaica-2025112719171700192 (Pulse Sports, 27 November 2025)
