MONTEGO BAY, St James – Downed trees, power lines, and a few billboards aside, the commercial hub of the island’s tourist capital was spared much of the damage anticipated from the onslaught of Hurricane Dean on Sunday.

Monday morning saw life returning to normal in the city as vendors assumed their traditional positions along the mostly clean sidewalks and taxi operators plied their regular routes.

“There has been no major damage. it may take a few days to clear up all the debris, but the power should be back by tomorrow,” a public health inspector told the Observer.

Plans to reopen the Sangster International Airport by 12:00 pm were still on track up to press time today, with tourists lining up for departure.

Efforts to get a comment from the Jamaica Public Service regarding the return of electricity to the city proved futile. However, Pauline Reid, president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told the Observer that based on the contacts she had made, water would be back before the end of the day.

Expressing thankfulness that the second city – which usually has much to fear in terms of flooding from the North Gully – had come through the storm with relatively little damage, she pointed out that she was a bit disappointed with the level of anxiety that the weather forecasts occasioned.

“I know it is important to give the necessary warnings in situations like this, but even when it became obvious that the system was shifting, the situation was still being hyped up,” she said.

“We were still being told that the country was in line for a big hit from a category four hurricane. This is not the first it has happened, and I think that we needed to be a little more precise in the way we monitored these reports which were being fed directly to us from The Weather Channel,” she said.

Reid also said that the St James Parish Council, which, through its disaster preparedness meeting, had pulled all the city’s stakeholders together to collaborate two days before the storm, had done much to prepare the city for the onslaught.

“We weren’t scared really, we had a wonderful time,” a few reported.

According to general manager of the 124-room Montego Bay Breezes resort, Lance Parish, the storm had not inconvenienced his guests.

“We were reporting an 80 per cent occupancy rate before the hit and we’re pretty much the same,” said Parish, pointing out that all the essentials – water, electricity, food and entertainment – were available to his guests.

In fact, the hotel found itself playing host to a number of other agencies whose systems were affected by the storm, including the British High Commission.