Bent by the storm, never broken

Each year, as November begins, Jamaicans exhale a little. The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, begins its final stretch, and the island that has weathered so much prepares to turn the page once more. This year, that breath carries extra weight. Just days ago, the nation marked one year since Hurricane Melissa.

On October 28, 2025, Hurricane Melissa came ashore near New Hope, Westmoreland, as a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 185 miles per hour, the strongest storm ever recorded to strike Jamaica. Western parishes bore the brunt, with homes, schools, farms, and livelihoods swept away, and at least 45 lives lost. Hurricane Melissa has since been retired from the list of hurricane names, a mark reserved for storms too devastating to be used again.

Yet the story of that storm is only half told by the destruction. A year on, electricity and water services have largely been restored, schools have reopened, and the tourism sector reports that about 90 per cent of its room stock is back in operation. Recovery is far from complete as many families still await housing and insurance settlements, but the work continues. As Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett put it, Hurricane Melissa “was able to bend us, but it could not break us”.

That spirit is older than any one storm. The very word “hurricane” comes from the Taíno, Jamaica’s first people, who named the great storm spirit Juracán. Their descendants in spirit have faced Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Hurricane Beryl in 2024, and now Hurricane Melissa, each time rebuilding with the same tools our ancestors relied on: community, faith, and shared labour. It lives in the neighbour who shares a generator, the church that opens its doors, the “pardner” circle that pools resources, and the hands that arrive unasked to help raise a roof.

For Jamaicans, resilience is not a slogan but a practice, passed down through generations who learned that no storm lasts forever and that people who stand together outlast the wind.

As the hurricane season closes, let us not simply move on. Let us prepare better, build stronger, and remember those still rebuilding. Storms test us, but they do not define us. What defines us is how we rise together afterward. Bend if you must, but never break, for our strength has always been in each other.

Contributed by Dr Lorenzo Gordon, a diabetologist, internal medicine consultant, biochemist, and history and heritage enthusiast. Send feedback to inspiring876@gmail.com.