Hurricane Melissa damage in Jamaica now estimated at US$8.8 billion

An updated estimate of the damage to residential and non-residential buildings, housing, infrastructure, and agriculture from Hurricane Melissa, which tore through Jamaica’s southwestern coast on October 28, has been placed at US$8.8 billion (nearly JMD$1.5 trillion)

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The figure was presented by World Bank Country Director for the Caribbean, Lilia Burunciuc, at a Jamaica House press briefing on Wednesday. She said the number represents 41 per cent of Jamaica’s 2024 gross domestic product.

“This number assumes only physical damage,” she stated. Burunciuc warned that the economic damage will also be large, adding that “often, from our experience, it is a larger damage than the physical damage.” She said this wider impact will be assessed once the dollar estimate is completed.

Burunciuc noted that St. James, Westmoreland, and St. Elizabeth suffered the worst of the storm, with these three parishes accounting for US$5.5 billion, or 63 per cent of the total estimate.

Damage to residential buildings stands at US$3.7 billion, or 41 per cent of the overall figure, making it the largest category. That includes houses, their contents, and mixed-use buildings classified as residential. Damage to non-residential buildings is estimated at US$1.8 billion and covers commercial, industrial, tourism, and public buildings and their contents. Infrastructure losses total US$2.9 billion, while agricultural damage is estimated at US$389 million.

The figures will be detailed in an upcoming joint report by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the storm has affected about 900,000 people, with around 100,000 homes damaged. He stressed that the Government is committed to fiscal discipline and transparency throughout the recovery and rebuilding effort.

“One of the reasons we are able to galvanise the multilateral community is because of the sacrifice and great effort that we, as a people, have collectively made in ensuring that we have fiscal discipline rooted in our political culture, in our economics and in our civic and social affairs,” Holness said. “It is well appreciated and understood that the Government of Jamaica must be fiscally responsible and that as a country we will use resources from the international community and our own taxes in the best and most frugal way, in the smartest way. So, we intend to continue this through the development process.”

Holness, who chairs CARICOM, was speaking during a tour with regional Heads of Government and international donor partners in Whitehouse, Westmoreland, on Monday (Nov. 17).