The Current - Jamaican resilience after category 5 storm

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

The CBC's David Common was in Jamaica more than a month after parts of the island were devastated by a category 5 hurricane. He takes us to a local hospital where the roof was ripped off and patients are still showing up with injuries from the storm. He also introduces us to locals who are trying to get back on their feet and hoping that tourists will still be coming this winter season. Tourism makes up one third of Jamaica's GDP and employs hundreds of thousands of people.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. In late October, Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica. The Category 5 storm was the strongest hurricane to hit the island in recorded history. At least 45 people were killed. More than 150,000 buildings and homes were damaged. The island is still recovering, and those living in popular tourist destinations, like Montego Bay and Negril, want to rebuild especially quickly.

They are trying to reopen in time for the winter tourism season because a third of the island relies on that income. The CBC's David Common was just in Jamaica to see how the country is doing nearly two months on and he's within our Toronto studio. David, good morning. Good morning. You were in Montego Bay. This is one of the hardest hit areas. As I mentioned, a lot of people know it as a tourism hub. That's the airport that many people fly into to go to other tourism destinations.

What did you see when you got there? It was right by that airport that the Category 5 Hurricane Melissa came ashore. 17 foot storm surge. You still see trees down, roofs that are ripped off in basically every single area. A lot of devastation and a lot of resilience. I was deeply impressed in our short time there looking at neighbors, helping neighbors. You do still see people sweeping floodwaters out of their homes. There are homes that people will never be able to live in again. There are homes that people are trying to scrape up the money to fix. There are power lines down. Tons of people we met who still. still do not have, as they say, they're light, any kind of electricity. We saw just individuals, frankly, trying to restore a lot of those lines. I've seen people washing clothes by hand. A lot of the stores that people rely on, they're also gone. And we went through all of the damage, you know, $10 billion. It's hard to sort of imagine that kind of a number. This is a country that has a $20 billion GDP. And you begin to ask, how do they recover?

So you went to one of the local hospitals. What did you see there? So this is a Cornwall Regional Hospital. It's a large building, 400 beds. A lot of the building was damaged. And they have worked quite tirelessly. Some NGOs have come in to help out. But a lot of Jamaicans have just done the work themselves to get things up and running.

Part of the roof was ripped off in one of the main surgical wards. The staff in the middle of the hurricane had to push people, patients, critically ill patients, into a concrete building. It's all quite something. The ER is now in a different building that also lost its roof, but it was faster to put a new roof on. We went in there. It's packed. There are people there who have been recently had limbs amputated. There are people on oxygen. There are people who are clearly waiting a very long time. It's crowded. The staff are doing what they can. Right here. Morning. Right here. See, the roof is gone. Look at these posts there, everything. I wouldn't believe that a roof like this could have been down down.

Along here and upstairs were patient. We had to move them quickly into those areas that were concrete roofs. That's Dr. Delroy Frey, who oversees basically the entire region's health care. A lot of our patients were maroon in some areas of this parish. They had injuries, especially diabetic foot injuries, and they were not able to present early enough. couldn't get into hospital. And as you can see from what we see in the accident and emergency era, it's crumb. We are not happy with the cram nature, but under the

circumstances is the best that we can do to give our patients the best care. The best we can do. You met a Canadian doctor who's at the hospital. What did she tell you? Yeah, this is Dr. Juliana Deutsche. Who's a Calgary doctor. And can you put your thumb up like this? She is not even working at the hospital. She's working in a tent next door. to what they call the accident and emergency, really there to help relieve pressure on some of the local doctors and nurses. There's this registered charity

called Canadian Medical Assistance Teams. They do this. They deploy to disaster zones. They bring doctors, paramedics, nurses, and they come in there as volunteers to try to take some of the pressure off this strained local system. The department is still very busy.

We're helping to offload about 30 to 40% of the patient volume per day. You might have lost your medications in the hurricane. Maybe you don't have a fridge to store your insulin. And so we're seeing worsening at the chronic medical conditions. It's been really phenomenal to see and to hear stories every single day. Patients are sharing with us, colleagues are sharing with us about the ongoing challenges that they're facing, even a month post-Hurricane and how they're overcoming that. You guys are doing a marvelous job.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. You mentioned the resilience that you saw down there as well. Tell me about the community and what you heard from local community leaders about how people are doing. Yeah. Let me take you to the Hillview Baptist Church. Remember, Jamaica has a very large Christian population that religion is very central to life. So when you see a church like this that had its entire massive zinc corrugated metal roof torn away, the ceiling inside that sanctuary gone, everything inside that church was basically destroyed. It is quite something to see people in their Sunday best showing up for a service in the basement. about they will overcome, that in spite of all the challenges, that Jamaicans will look after this and look after each other, that was in many ways the message of Pastor Dwayne Madden. We are pretty used to hurricanes, but we're not used to a category five hurricanes.

So it's the spirit of resilience Jamaican-wise, but then also the spirit of God that is within me because I'm a man of faith, I'm a pastor. It means that we're going to have to dig deep and be resilient in trying to bounce back and build back. But we're not going to build it the same way. We're going to be decking it concrete. That way it's going to be hurricane proof. Hurricane proof. Are people connecting this storm with climate change? And these storms are happening more frequently. And they're happening with greater severity. And that they need, if they're going to rebuild, they need to rebuild with climate and climate proofing in mind. Yeah. The challenge is that's expensive. And so you ask, do people talk about this? Some absolutely do. And they talk about the wealthier nations that have

had more influence impact on the climate change that we are seeing that nations like Jamaica, not as well off, are facing the impact of. And so there are some Jamaicans who would say it's the wealthier West that should perhaps be paying to fix a lot of this devastation. In the meantime, people, as you said, are still living without power. People are trying to rebuild their homes. How are people doing that? How are people rebuilding? So in some cases, it's exhausting the savings they had. In some cases, it's using a GoFundMe, some sort of online fundraising. Others just don't even have those resources. And so you see a lot of people who just have tarps, which will not withstand a heavy rainfall, let alone another hurricane that all Jamaicans know will at some point come.

We did meet a guy named Donovan Birch. He generates income by renting out rooms within this larger house. The roof got totally ripped off. he's now trying to raise enough money to fix it. He's done about half of it using his savings. His family desperately needs the funds because, as I say, this home is their main source of income. It was so terrible, man.

We heard the roaring, powerful. I never heard those sound yet in all my life. Turn to my wife. She was downstairs. He said, no, don't go up here. It will blow you away. So I say, okay, then, and I start to cry. We can know that he's going to go through

and pick off and take tear off the home of the house. So that is one of the worst experience I never have, man. Donovan, Matt, basically says he knows his wife saved his life, that had he gone up, up on a ladder in that storm, he would have been pulled off and thrown down the hill. You know, people died in that area. 45 people died in this storm. People have died since because of illness.

When we were going around, we also met Carmita. She was watching as her neighbor, which basically trying to restore her power so that when the power company, the bucket trucks actually come, they'll be able to connect it more easily. Carmita is resilient, but she's also out of a job because she is one of those, one of the many, whose employment is connected to tourism. None of us have any jobs. Most of the hotels are out. Yeah. We just have to be doing cleaning

up work. We have no tourist season. Most of the hotels are down. So it's really bad. We're depending on tourist money to come in so we can get gratuity, so we can get paid. So tourism is our best income here. I would just point out she is a housekeeper in a hotel. That hotel quite badly damaged. A number of them are, but there's this real push to get tourists back. Because hundreds of thousands of people work in this industry. Yeah, they need these jobs. And so it is, frankly, Matt, it's weird watching the German cruise ship pull into Montego Bay when just up the hill there is such devastation when people are still scooping wet mud out of their homes, but they will all say, we need them back, we need the beach is cleared, we need people coming.

The Minister of Tourism wants to reopen hotels in places like Montego Bay. Based on what you saw, is that realistic? Yes, but perhaps not as quickly as they'd like it to happen. On the flight down, there were Canadians who were clearly just going for a sun vacation. There are some resorts that are open or partly open. We went to the beach there. There are beachgoers. There were German tourists on bicycles going past some of the areas of devastation.

It's weird. And many Jamaicans would tell you necessary. What is it? I mean, Canada has a close relationship with Jamaica. You think we're sitting in Toronto? There's long been a relationship between Toronto and Jamaica. Huge community here, yeah. What is it that a country like this could do to help that country get back on its feet?

You know, money is a component of it. There's no question about that. Just trying to get the power restored. There are American crews in there right now trying to help do that. There may be Canadians. We did not see evidence of that. But just the effort to get to some of these smaller villages in particular that are still marooned, that are still surrounded by trees and mud and other debris and have not been able to get connected to places like that hospital.

You know, what's going to happen if you are stuck? you're relying on getting things by water and that may not be enough. David, thank you very much. Thank you. The CBC's David Common was recently in Jamaica. You can find more of his reporting from that island on the CBC's YouTube channel. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m.

At all time zones, or you can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC listen app or wherever you get. your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca