Hurricane Melissa Exposed a 150-Year Wound — And Jamaica Cannot Afford to Ignore It Again. By Richard Hugh Blackford
- Yaawd Media
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Hurricane Melissa has left more than one-third of Jamaica in ruins, tearing through communities and crippling everyday life across the island. The storm’s devastation has also placed a hard question at our door: If the country has supposedly enjoyed five years of economic growth, why were so many Jamaicans living in structures so vulnerable that a single natural disaster wiped entire communities off the map?
The truth is uncomfortable but necessary: most of the economic gains we celebrate have bypassed ordinary Jamaicans and flowed upward to the island’s monied class. Meanwhile, the social and economic foundations of rural Jamaica, especially in the parishes of Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, Hanover, St James, and Trelawny, have remained startlingly unchanged since the 19th century.
To understand why Melissa struck these regions so profoundly, we must confront a historical truth we have glossed over for more than 150 years.
A Colonial Housing Model Still Haunts Jamaica
The parishes hardest hit by Hurricane Melissa are also the ones shaped most deeply by the colonial sugar economy. For generations, sugarcane was king, and the land was configured to serve that single purpose.
Under colonial rule:
Vast estates dominated the landscape.
Plantation owners controlled the land outright.
Jamaican workers lived on or near sugar plantations in wooden barracks, cheaply built and easily destroyed.
When emancipation came, these workers settled further into the parishes, but with one cruel limitation: they were denied access to land ownership.
Instead, they leased small parcels from estate owners or “captured” marginal land, raising up chattel houses — wooden structures mounted on blocks or stilts that could literally be lifted onto a dray cart or truck bed if the landlord refused to renew a lease.
These houses were never meant to be permanent. They were never meant to withstand hurricanes. They were never meant to anchor generational wealth.
Yet for over a century and a half, this fragile living arrangement persisted.
Successive generations inherited not the land, but the lease. And in many cases, the lease documents were never properly recorded, lost, or never existed at all.
This is not an accident. It is a direct inheritance of colonialism — a system designed to keep labourers tied to estates, never rooted enough to build wealth or independence.
Political Neglect: A Sin Shared by Both Parties
Despite knowing this history, both political parties — the JLP and the PNP , have failed, decade after decade, to break this cycle. Their rhetoric changes. Their promises rotate. But the underlying problem has remained: large swaths of Jamaica’s rural poor still live on land they do not own.
In Westmoreland in particular — perhaps the clearest modern example of this colonial legacy — thousands still occupy inherited chattel houses on land for which they have no title, no claim, and therefore no ability to develop, insure, or use as collateral.
And so, when Hurricane Melissa came, the destruction was not just physical. It was historical. It was structural. It was predictable.
Melissa’s Destruction Is the Final Warning
Now that entire communities have been flattened, we can no longer pretend that housing vulnerability is merely about “poor building choices.”
It is about land tenure. It is about economic disenfranchisement. It is about a 150-year chain fastened around the lives of rural Jamaicans.
The question is: Will we treat this moment as a turning point, or as another entry on the long list of missed opportunities?
A Way Forward: Use Disaster Designation to Break the Chain
If the Government is serious about recovery — serious about equity — serious about not repeating this tragedy — then Hurricane Melissa must be treated not only as a disaster but as an opportunity.
1. Declare the worst-affected parishes Special Disaster Zones
This provides a legal framework for accelerated processes, including land regularization, emergency planning approvals, and fast-tracked rebuilding support.
2. Pass Land Redevelopment and Regularization Legislation
This is the real key. For the first time, government should:
Identify long-settled communities on leased or untitled land.
Grant interim land titles to those who have lived on these lands for generations.
Allow residents to leverage these titles to build concrete, hurricane-resilient homes.
Break the dependency on political favors for housing assistance.
Create a new class of secure landowners who can participate meaningfully in the economy.
Pass Land Redevelopment and Regulations
3. Finance Low-Cost, Climate-Resilient Home Construction
By converting insecure land tenure into real ownership, families can finally:
Insure their homes
Access NHT funds
Secure loans
Build wealth
Move from vulnerability to stability
This one structural shift would do more to break generational poverty than any relief distribution, press conference, or political speech.
We Cannot Rebuild the Past — We Must Build the Future
Hurricane Melissa did not simply destroy homes. It exposed the foundation upon which too many Jamaicans still live — a foundation built in colonial times and shockingly preserved by modern governance.
If we do nothing, Melissa will not be remembered as the storm that changed Jamaica. It will be remembered as the storm we wasted.
But if we act - boldly, legislatively, and with the people in mind, then Melissa will be the moment Jamaica finally severed its oldest chain and gave its rural citizens the one thing they have always deserved:
Land. Security. Dignity. A chance to build a future that cannot be washed away.