Jamaica: No stranger to powerful hurricanes

By Robert C. Jones Jr. [email protected] 11-04-2025

It was the first major land mass in Hurricane Melissa's crosshairs and bore the brunt of the powerful storm's violent winds.

Now, a week after the storm made landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane, many communities remain cut off from the rest of the country. Dozens have perished, and the extent of the damage is still unknown.

The island nation is no stranger to tropical cyclones, often experiencing the impacts of Atlantic hurricanes that track across the Caribbean.

"Sandy was the last hurricane landfall there before Melissa, but the impacts were not remotely like what Melissa brought, and landfall was on the eastern side of the island instead of the west," said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate and tropical cyclone expert at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, referring to the Category 1 hurricane that struck Jamaica on Oct. 24, 2012.

Hurricane Gilbert, which made its first landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, on Sept. 12, 1988, as a Category 4 hurricane, is the closest storm in comparison to Melissa's impact on the country.

"Gilbert was intensifying as it approached Jamaica from the east and passed over the island lengthwise-east to west," McNoldy said.

Gilbert's peak sustained winds were 130 miles per hour and its central pressure was 960 millibars. Melissa, on the other hand, made landfall in Jamaica as the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the country, with preliminary data showing peak sustained winds of 185 miles per hour and a central pressure of 892 millibars.

"But Melissa was far worse and moved much slower, prolonging the exposure to extreme conditions," McNoldy noted.

Now begins the recovery and rebuilding process for the country. And it promises to be a long and arduous one, according to Esber Andiroglu, a professor of practice in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at the College of Engineering.

"The damage is widespread. Roads are blocked, there's massive flooding, structural damage to buildings, and communications are still down in many areas," he said. "So, getting the infrastructure back on its feet is the top priority before strategic steps can be taken to rebuild."

Caring for the injured is also taking precedence in the country's initial response to the disaster, said Dr. Elizabeth Greig, an assistant professor of medicine and codirector of the Global Institute for Community Health and Development at the Miller School of Medicine, a humanitarian and disaster relief program that sent physicians to the Bahamas to treat residents and to support Bahamian doctors after Hurricane Dorian devastated the islands in 2019. "Hospitals in the country have been badly damaged or destroyed, so getting medical care back up and running will be a priority," Greig said.

She noted that the Global Institute partners with the William Lehman Injury Research Center at the Ryder Trauma Center on telemedicine consultations with health care professionals treating patients in disaster areas.

"We've offered that service to Jamaica's Ministry of Health and Wellness," Greig said. "Obviously, the country hasn't fully restored communications. But when it does, we believe that will be a helpful resource to take some of the pressure off clinicians dealing with a disaster of Melissa's magnitude."