The Current - Jamaicans brace for Hurricane Melissa

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Jamaica is preparing for Hurricane Melissa. The category 5 hurricane is the strongest storm on the planet this year —  and it could become the strongest storm ever to hit Jamaica. The country has issued mandatory evacuation orders for people living in coastal areas, but there are concerns that not enough people have left their homes. We speak with two people who are getting ready for when the storm hits —  and working on relief efforts for their communities, as officials are warning the storm will bring “catastrophic” damages to communities and infrastructure.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. People in Jamaica are waking up to a strengthening hurricane Melissa. It intensified into a category five storm yesterday, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, and the pressure inside the storm is dropping even lower, increasing its floor. force. It is now the strongest storm on the planet this year, and it could become the strongest storm ever to hit that country.

When you're speaking about waves 17 feet high, a storm surge that will come inland. You're speaking about massive flooding 30 inches, 40 inches of rain simultaneously. There isn't infrastructure that's built, I think, anywhere in the world to navigate that sort of risk. So we do expect that if it does come on shore, we will be facing significant damage. That was Matthew Samuda, Jamaica's Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change, speaking yesterday as Hurricane Melissa made its way to land. The country has issued mandatory evacuation orders for people living in coastal areas, but there are concerns not enough people have left their homes. And officials are warning the storm will bring catastrophic damages to communities and infrastructure. Three people have already died in Jamaica and four in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Michael Taylor is a climate scientist at the U.S. University of the West Indies at the Mona Jamaica campus, where he studies the impact of climate change on the Caribbean. He's in Kingston. Good morning. Hi, good morning. What is the storm doing right now? Well, the storm is still offshore Jamaica, south of our westernmost point and southwest of Kingston where I am. It is barreling towards us. In Kingston, what we have been seeing has been a lot of rain, strong winds, sustained winds, and very, very, very, very, very, very, powerful winds. Certainly, weather conditions are just deteriorating by the Ovo. What has this night been like for you, waiting for this storm to hit?

I think, you know, there's a weariness, a mental weariness for me, for my family, for the country. Part of it is that one of the unique characteristics of this storm has been how slow it has been. And so we actually have been anticipating this storm for almost a week. The country went into a kind of a lockdown mode last Wednesday or Thursday. And every day, you know, we got a different thing about when the storm would make landfall. So there's a real strong, almost mental fatigue. And this is before the storm has hit. And we weather the storm with this and then of course have to pick up the pieces. It is obviously expected to be an enormous storm. What is your sense of how well-prepared the country is? I think people are doing the very

best. I think the word has gotten out about how strong this storm is and people have taken it seriously. Part of that, of course, is the climate change effect that we had a significant storm last year, burial, which came in, you know, and we have been going through this. So people don't take this lightly, but there is no, you know, you can only do so much for this magnitude storm that we are expecting. So there's still, you know, there's still going to be some catastrophic effects, probably already playing out. How are you personally staying safe? Doing what we can.

Thankfully, I'm in a concrete structure with a concrete roof. We have done all the recommended personal things, shut at the windows, stored water, stored food, charged every device that we can charge, stay in contact with relatives and friends, reaching out to people just to make sure they're they're safe. That's the kind of things that most people are doing. But we still know that there are several people who are already feeling some significant effects. And, you know,

our thoughts and prayers are with them. That's on the personal level. Professionally, I mean, you study climate science. What are you thinking as you watch this storm hit? Thinking a number of things, thinking how much this storm fits the imprint of what storms will look like in a global warming era, you know, the rapid intensification going from storm to category five in so short a time, the magnitude of the storm, the very strong and intense. In fact, we're in this, this is the third category five in the region this season, you know, it bears so much the imprints of what storms will look like in a warming era that it says, you know, we really know, we can't, you know, as a small island, it's certainly.

sit back and not make a plea globally that climate change is such a real thing and impacts us personally. This is existential for us. These are lives. And we really have to see this being taken seriously globally. Well, Michael Taylor, I hope that you can stay safe. We rush all the best to you and your loved ones right now. Thank you so much. Michael Taylor is a climate scientist at the University of the West Indies. He was in Kingston. Rosalie Hamilton is in St. Andrew just outside of Kingston. She is the CEO of the Lasco Chin Foundation, which works with vulnerable youth and helps with climate preparedness and disaster relief.

She's also the chair of the Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance. Good morning. Good morning. How are you doing this morning? I'm doing well. You know, like many Jamaicans, we're anticipating the worst. But, you know, I live in the hills of St. Andrew. again, in a concrete structure like Michael, and, you know, we've done all the precautionary steps, and we're right now feeling safe and we're good.

What is the situation outside, best as you can tell? Well, it's during the night, there's a lot of rain and wind. We could hear that. But right now, it's calm, very little wind, and the rain has stopped. There's no electricity. But again, we're prepared. We did major solar conversion in our home. And so we have some solar energy and, you know, we have a battery that's full and so on.

So we're fine, but the main electricity to our home has gone, went through the night. Who are you most concerned about right now? The most vulnerable. people who are on the coastal parts of Jamaica who didn't leave, didn't go to shelters, people who are living on the hillsides who are likely to face landslides. And those who just couldn't prepare,

they had no capacity to prepare. It requires resources, and if you had none, then you know, you're just waiting and praying that the worst is not going to impact you. What have your thoughts been about, I mean, the storm is just making landfall just hitting now, but you've started to think about how to help some of those people once it passes. We've been thinking about it over the last five days. My own foundation, we've done our own internal conversations and preparation,

and we're prepared to move as long as we're able to get back into the, office. My foundation is linked to a manufacturing company that manufactures food and drinks and so on. So we're mobilizing internally the company as well. And we have just yesterday had a meeting with several corporate foundations talking to our international partners. And we're really preparing relief. And we're well organized. We've done it already. We just had the recent experience of hurricane burial, and so we're very prepared. So what do you expect that to concretely look like? You're talking about what, providing water to folks, food?

Yes, relief packages, you know, infrastructure relief. When it comes to that, I think the first phase is really getting water, getting food to the most vulnerable. And really checking in on how people are doing. We're also aware of the mental stress, as is there. the last five to six days people have been waiting anxiously for the storm. The projections were it would hit as early as Wednesday or Thursday of last week. And so there's a lot of anxiety and we expect a lot of that to take place. So we're going to roll out a range of supports.

And I think the only constraint is the extent to which we can literally travel along the roads and the extent to which we are able to mobilize the resources and the packages and the food and so on that we do have in place. We heard from our last guest about the fact that these storms are becoming more frequent. I wonder what lessons you learned from Beryl in terms of being prepared for a moment like this. Well, I can tell you from my organization and both my national and regional organization, I chair a Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance. We have since, for the last few years, intensified our capacity to organize around these events. In fact, we were having the first Caribbean philanthropic organization forum this week. It should have started today.

And we had to cancel as a result, of course, of what is happening. But that conference was really about bringing together philanthropic organizations with, sector with experts and a main focus was climate, how we're going to prepare for a new phase in our development where these climate events will become more frequent and more intense. And so the philanthropic community in the Caribbean is coming together. We're coming together with our partners in the U.S., in Canada, in Europe, across the world, and we're doing the best we can to prepare, not just for the event as it happens,

but certainly to build resilience of our people before the events happens. Well, again, we wish you well, Rosalie. We wish everyone in Jamaica well at this unsettling time. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. Thank you so much for having us. Rosalie Hamilton is the CEO of the Lasco Chin Foundation and the chair of the Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance.

We reached churches outside of Kingston, Jamaica. 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. 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 slash podcasts.