Hurricane Melissa has given Jamaica a choice: evolve or repeat.
This final instalment sets out a framework for evolution — one that centres scientific evidence, engineering autonomy, disaster psychology, climate justice, transparent finance, and national dignity.
Hurricane Melissa has given Jamaica a choice: evolve or repeat.
This final instalment sets out a framework for evolution — one that centres scientific evidence, engineering autonomy, disaster psychology, climate justice, transparent finance, and national dignity.
This is the moment for Jamaica to abandon the reflexive ministerial habit of explaining disasters with the same tired phrases — “McGregor Gully”, “Taylor Land”, “a little water inna di scheme” — as though banality could replace a proper hydrological model. That era must end.
1. Scientific Leadership Must Become Non-Negotiable
A climate-ready Jamaica must:
- follow UWI Climate Studies Group recommendations
- embed climate projections in the national budget
- mandate climate-risk audits for all major projects
- protect technical agencies from political interference
Countries that thrive under extreme climate pressures — Japan, New Zealand, The Netherlands — do not marginalise scientists. They empower them.
2. Engineering Decisions Must be Made by Engineers
Every major infrastructure failure during Melissa aligned with long-standing engineering warnings. Jamaica must now:
- require independent geotechnical reviews
- enforce building codes without political exemptions
- redesign culverts and river training structures
- protect watershed integrity through regulation, not rhetoric
- remove ministerial override on technical decisions
This requires one shift: Ministers must know when to step back.
3. ODPEM, the Met Service, and Psychologists Must Lead Public Communication
Risk communication is a science. It should not be diluted by political instinct. Jamaica needs:
- a unified national emergency voice
- depoliticised information briefings
- real-time data dashboards
- psychological first-aid teams in shelters
- training for MPs and councillors on crisis communication
A country that communicates calmly saves lives.
4. Transparent Climate Governance
Melissa should finally end the culture of opaque project selection, last-minute procurement, politically choreographed “site visits”, and the symbolic ceremonialism that too often surrounds disaster response.
Jamaica must adopt:
- open procurement portals
- cost–benefit modelling
- climate-risk-adjusted investment criteria
- public dashboards showing every dollar spent
Climate adaptation requires trust. Trust requires transparency.
5. Community-Level Empowerment
The most effective resilience model globally is community-led engagement. Jamaica needs to equip:
- teachers
- local leaders
- church networks
- youth clubs
- fishers’ associations
- farmers’ groups
with tools for early warning, emergency response, and local planning.
Melissa showed us that the first responders are neighbours.
6. A Moral Shift in National Leadership
Finally, Melissa demands a change in tone. Leadership must now be grounded in humility — not the reflexive political instinct to narrate every hazard as though it were a seasonal McGregor Gully overflow, but the sober acknowledgement that Jamaica is entering a new climate era.
The nation does not need performative reassurance.
It needs truth.
It needs competence.
It needs evidence.
It needs professionals.
Conclusion: A Covenant with the Future
Melissa’s waters receded, but they left behind a message. Not written in metaphor, not softened by political language, but carved into the landscape: Jamaica must modernise its approach to disaster governance.
To treat Melissa as a “mali gripe an’ fluxxy complaint” is to dishonour the lives lost, the homes ruined, the children traumatised, and the workers displaced.
To learn from Melissa is to build a Jamaica sturdy enough, smart enough, and honest enough to face the storms ahead.
That is the covenant we owe our children, our farmers, our fishers, our teachers, our elders, and the next generation born into this warming world.
Jamaica must choose professional leadership over performative leadership.
Our survival depends on it.
