The silence is the loudest thing. It’s the silence of a house unlit, the silence of a phone with no signal, the silence that only comes with the absence of civilisation.

It has been 20 nights since Hurricane Melissa carved a path of unthinkable destruction through Western Jamaica on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, and the silence is starting to feel less like peace and more like abandonment.

We are entering the third week of this nightmare, and in communities across St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, and St James the grim reality is a primal struggle. My experience is not unique: the house was flooded; the stench of stagnant water lingers; and with no power to drive back the dark, the rats are coming out of the woodwork. They are joined by a relentless buzzing army of mosquitoes, turning every waking and sleeping hour into a fight against vector-borne diseases. We pay our bills — our hard-earned money going to Jamaica Public Service (JPS), National Water Commission (NWC), Flow, and Digicel — yet we are left in the literal dark, footing the clean-up bill and fighting the psychological toll of this drawn-out crisis.

The sheer weight of the devastation is crushing. Reports confirmed 45 confirmed deaths and a further 15 still missing — lives extinguished in the blink of an eye, leaving behind grief and voids that can never be filled. Over 1.6 million people have been affected, every single one of us battling some degree of loss, whether physical or existential. The hurricane did not just destroy homes; it destroyed futures, evidenced by the $20 billion in agricultural losses, crippling the rural livelihoods that form the backbone of our western parishes.

Preliminary scientific analysis tells us the bitter truth: Melissa was a climate-change-influenced extreme weather event, with up to a 16 per cent increase in rainfall and a 7 per cent boost in wind speeds. We are paying the price for a global failure, but the recovery — the local response — must not be allowed to fail us too.

The Stagnation of Recovery

Two weeks on the recovery narrative is one of slow, painful, and often-obstructed progress. While 60 per cent of JPS customers have reportedly had power restored, that figure leaves 40 per cent of the nation — including my own community — in complete darkness. The situation overview highlights the complexity: Two communities, Cambridge and Petersville, only recently became accessible; persistent flooding in low-lying coastal zones due to rising groundwater levels continues to delay clean-up and restoration; the water just keeps seeping up, undermining hope and infrastructure simultaneously.

The time for excuses is over. Our utility providers are not volunteer organisations. They are essential services paid for by suffering citizens. Their current strategies are demonstrably inefficient. If I were given the mandate, here are the non-negotiable strategies I would implement immediately to expedite recovery and protect citizens — strategies that prove they should, frankly, just hire me.

Strategy 1: The JPS Mandate — Beyond the Pole

The restoration rate is too slow. My immediate priority for JPS would be a dynamic, data-driven approach:

1) Grid segmentation and microgrids: Stop focusing solely on large-scale transmission lines. We must isolate heavily damaged local zones and prioritise rapid deployment of containerised microgrids or large-scale generators to critical nodes like shelters, health centres, and water pumping stations first. This immediately restores service to key facilities and gives hope to surrounding areas.

2) Rapid aerial assessment and pre-staging: Every major utility vehicle should be equipped with drone technology. The moment a storm warning is issued, pre-positioned rapid-response teams must be ready to deploy for drone-based visual assessment immediately after the all-clear, generating a precise, geo-tagged damage map that bypasses unreliable ground reconnaissance. This saves days.

3) Transparent, hyper-local communication: The 60 per cent restoration statistic means nothing to the 40 per cent waiting. Implement a transparent digital map showing restoration progress by parish and community, with specific estimated times of repair (ETRs) for local grids. This manages expectations and mitigates frustration.

Strategy 2: NWC’s Critical Path

Persistent groundwater flooding and contamination risks (seeping water, damaged sanitation) are a public health time bomb. The UNICEF coordination is a temporary measure, but NWC needs permanent foresight:

1) Mobile purification blitz: Double the deployment of mobile purification units (MPUs) and assign them to the remaining isolated communities and active shelters immediately. These units must be transported by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) to ensure delivery.

2) Subsurface remediation task force: The prolonged flooding is the real enemy. Deploy specialised teams to tackle subsurface saturation — not just surface water. This means using high-capacity industrial pumps and establishing temporary drainage channels (even if they require structural engineering) to stabilise road foundations and allow clean-up to proceed.

3) Prioritise water access for health-care facilities and shelters: Hospitals (five major ones are under repair) and the 88 active shelters housing 1,000 people must never lose water. These facilities require dedicated, redundant water supply lines and emergency borehole access backed by dedicated solar or microgrid power generation.

Strategy 3: Flow and Digicel — Communication as Life Support

The breakdown of communication is not merely inconvenient, it hampers the entire response effort, threatens protection concerns for displaced families, and limits access to the 9,000 communities reached for food assistance. Communication is life support.

1) Cells on wheels (COW) first response: Upon hurricane warning, pre-stage portable cells on wheels at emergency operations centres. These should be trucked into the hardest-hit areas (like St Elizabeth and Westmoreland) within 48 hours to restore basic voice and SMS services, relying on satellite backhaul, not fibre.

2) Satellite backhaul priority: Immediately establish high-priority contracts for satellite bandwidth to ensure that critical communications (police, medical, Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management [ODPEM]) remain functional even when ground fibre is severed. Standard traffic should be throttled to guarantee this essential lifeline.

3) Public charging stations: Partner with JPS to deploy solar-powered charging stations in key public areas to allow citizens to charge phones and receive critical updates, even without full home power restoration.

This is not just about restoring a billable service, it is about restoring dignity, safety, and the ability of a community to rebuild. When the lights are out, the water is contaminated, and the only news is the sound of mosquitoes. Citizens who pay their bills deserve more than an apology — they deserve action, competence, and a plan that anticipates crisis, not just reacts to it.

The current providers are failing to meet the moment. The devastation is too profound and the public health risks are too high for this recovery to continue at a snail’s pace. It’s time for new strategies, new leadership, and a new commitment to the people of Jamaica.

A concerned resident of western Jamaica

The sheer weight of the devastation from Hurricane Melissa is crushing.