Christopher Burgess | Avoiding vulnerabilities in recovery

Hurricane Melissa revealed that Jamaica’s weakness is not only fragile coordination but fragile infrastructure. Empathy and equity must remain at the heart of the recovery process. As Jamaica moves past the response phase and enters early assessment and recovery, we must focus on rebuilding stronger communities rather than repeating past vulnerabilities.

The challenge is balancing the urgency of recovery with smarter rebuilding before the next storm. The 2026 hurricane season is already projected to be intense under La Niña conditions. Rebuilding roofs, communicating the Building Code requirements, strengthening water systems, and embedding electrical poles deeper will be essential. Otherwise, we will be replacing old vulnerabilities with future vulnerabilities.

RAPID REROOFING

Rapid reroofing and the use of temporary “blue roofs” must be a priority to move families out of cars, and makeshift spaces. With 191,000 homes damaged and roughly 150,000 repairable, these households should be reroofed as quickly as possible.

The widespread roof failures reflect decades of weak construction, shaped by poverty – where eight-inch rafters become four-inch, hurricane straps are replaced by empty block pockets. These shortcuts cannot withstand a moderate Category-3 storm, like Beryl. Jamaica must correct these vulnerabilities now, with inspections by brigades of building inspectors.

Some engineered timber roofs performed flawlessly in Melissa’s Category-5 winds. Their strength came from proper fastening of rafters spaced 24 inches or less, rafter sizes greater than 4 inches, well-anchored wall plates, and hurricane straps. I also saw this firsthand in Luana and three Trelawny housing schemes built by the same developer. Government should assist households that cannot restart repairs on their own by providing roofing kits and technical guidance. At roughly US$4,000 per home for lumber and sheeting, this support would cost less than US$200 million.

Operation PRIDE schemes that used concrete decking – such as Duncans Hill – also performed well under extreme winds. Homeowners with adequate masonry structures should be supported if they wish to install decks.

But stronger roofs alone will not build resilience; the foundation is widespread understanding and application of the Building Code.

COMMUNICATING THE BUILDING CODE

Communities are already rebuilding with vulnerabilities; young men in Belmont, Westmoreland and Richmond Hill in St James are straightening and fixing zinc sheets to makeshift homes. More than 80 percent of damaged homes were not built to Building Code requirements that remains out of reach for many. Unless the government embarks on a public education campaign, resilience will remain uneven.

Public education must lead. Jamaica’s Code now aligns with International Code Council (ICC) standards, but adoption by builders is virtually non-existent. Government, through JIS, should produce short videos on code requirements before the 2026 season. The viral “Julliemango” video, produced in less than a week, provides a useful example with powerful instructions. Six or so short videos could guide community builders on constructing Cat-5-resistant timber roofs and concrete decking.

But even as we teach stronger building practices, thousands in the west are struggling with something even more fundamental: the lack of clean and safe drinking water.

RIVER WATER AND LEPTOSPIROSIS

Across western Jamaica, thousands have returned to springs and rivers as NWC supplies remain offline. Before Melissa, 720,000 Jamaicans relied on roof catchments – many of those roofs are now gone.

Dystopia best describes the need for water: Luana residents collecting from streams; families bathing in a torn pipeline trench in Anchovy; roadside creeks crowded at Rhyne Park; and vendors reselling creek water for $8,000 per tank.

Emergency trucked water is essential. At least 50 more trucks are needed, costing less than US$8 million for acquisition and operation. Minister Samuda’s initiative to relocate generators to the west is a step in the right direction. But long-term resilience demands standby power at major water treatment plants, with diesel gensets. This would cost about US$10 million and secure water supply for 200,000 people during outages. No one, three weeks after Hurricane Melissa, should have to resort to using gully water, at the risk of contracting Leptospirosis, from rat urine.

Yet the water crisis was also because of another systemic failure – Jamaica’s fragile electrical infrastructure.

DEEPER ELECTRICAL POLES

Melissa devastated Jamaica’s electrical grid in the west. The storm toppled thousands of poles and crippled more than 500,000 customers. Western Jamaica faces three more months of outages as weakened pole foundations exposed vulnerabilities to high winds.

More than 70 per cent of the toppled poles did not snap – a sign of shallow embedment. In areas like Luana and Priory, poles were bent over by the wind, showing inadequate embedment in saturated soils. JPS guidelines require poles be planted to 10 per cent of pole length plus two feet, but the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends at least 10 per cent of length plus six feet and deeper in hurricane zones. Many toppled poles that did not meet even the JPS’s standards.

As JPS moves to harder grid restoration, the priority must shift to resilience: deeper embedment in replanting. It is also time to consider an underground system for distribution, to build further resilience. Hope Pastures’ experience during Beryl showed this clearly – overhead poles failed, underground circuits remained online. In a more intense hurricane climate, outdated methods will continue to fail.

Jamaica’s road to recovery will require a hybrid approach – informative, pragmatic, and economically resilient. Policymakers must act with empathy, speed and equity: empathy in securing water supplies, speed in communicating the building code, and planting deeper poles and equity in providing housing relief. The storms of the future are already forming and will punish the society that does not learn and evolve.

Christopher Burgess, PhD, is a civil engineer, land developer, climate change scientist and the Managing Director of CEAC Solutions. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.