When I fulfilled a lifelong dream to move to Montego Bay, Jamaica, I did not envision the Category 5 Hurricane Melissa that would decimate much of the island on October 28, 2025, killing more than four dozen people, wiping out much of the breadbasket in the southwest, where the weather event made landfall, and plunging more than 75 percent of the island into darkness.
I had travelled to the capital of Kingston to attend a funeral the Friday before Melissa hit. On the day of my scheduled departure, Sunday October 26, 2025, the island shut down. Airports and bus depots closed. I stayed in Kingston until November 1.
I am one of the lucky ones. Kingston sustained minor damage; I was safe. Montego Bay suffered power and water outages, which a month later are still being rectified. Unlike many Jamaicans my only hurricane souvenir at home in Montego Bay was a cracked patio door and some leaking.
To the untrained eye much of the island looks like it sustained a nuclear attack. Trees are uprooted, their leaves whipped off; many are black and leafless, as if they are enduring a Dr. Zhivago-type winter.
Houses lost roofs, others were pulverized, as if they were fed to a woodchipper; some sank to the bottom of newly risen bodies of water or were flung across the street the way toddlers toss bitter vegetables from their plates. More than 125,000 people have been displaced, now homeless.
An acquaintance in my town shared with me a photo of his villa, which looks like a model home: warm interior with accent walls—mahogany bookshelves perfectly stacked, leather armchairs placed at artful angles—and no roof, the cobalt blue sky above telegraphing a beautiful post-Melissa day. The hurricane was an equal-opportunity destroyer, but those with the means will rebuild. As always, economic justice will be slow for those who are low income or poor.
Some 1.25 million livestock perished in the hurricane. In some hard-hit communities sightings of John Crows, scavenger birds needed to eat the animal carcasses, are fewer than expected. In ravished areas, bees fly angrily, unsuccessfully seeking nectar from scalded, barren flowers.
Hurricane-related mental-health issues abound: An octogenarian who spent the night in a shelter, running from building to building as the wind’s direction changed, has stopped speaking. A woman who works in an unaffected area during the week and returns to her home in Ground Zero on the weekend haltingly asked for a mental-health intervention on an online seminar. Two individuals told me that they “saw” the wind, their eyes hollow, unblinking. One of the most common self-descriptions has become “traumatized.” People are not waiting to be labeled by others; they are calling themselves out.
I refer to July 23, the day I landed in Montego Bay, as my second birthday. I have been asked if I regret my time in Jamaica. It is the opposite. I love Jamaica, the land of my ancestors, with even more passion than ever before and have been rallying family and friends to engage in fundraising initiatives from emergency food assistance to medical and infant supplies.
According to the World Bank, approximately 41 percent of Jamaica’s GDP was wiped out by the hurricane. We as citizens of the world are wired for instant fixes, but the road back to normalcy is a long one; there is no sugarcoating it.
For members of the Jamaican diaspora, I implore you to give back to help stabilize your loved ones and the wider Jamaican community. Jamaican medical personnel—doctors, nurses, home health aides—are part of the hum of American life, as are teachers, engineers, bus drivers and a host of other professionals and workers. I encourage those who have benefited from them to give or volunteer for the recovery efforts in their honor.
And for those who have befriended and been befriended by Jamaicans both on your soil or on the island, as part of the sprawling, now somewhat stalled tourism industry, I invite you to help in the recovery, too. Make Jamaica your travel destination as the island welcomes visitors back now in some areas, and wholesale in February. You can check online which properties are currently open and for others’ reopening schedules.
As the bard sang, “One Love.” Let’s live it.
For hotel reopenings, please visit the following link:
Jamaica Resorts Status & Reopening Updates | Official Travel Information
