An updated estimate of the damage to residential and and non-residential buildings, housing, infrastructure and agriculture from Hurricane Melissa which ravaged Jamaica’s southwestern coast on October 28, has been put at US$8.8 billion.

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

“This number assumes only physical damage,” she stated. Burunciuc warned that the economic damage will also be large, and noted that, “often, from our experience, it is a larger damage than the physical damage”. She said this will be estimated later when the dollar asessment is completed.

The World Bank director also noted that the parishes of St James, Westmoreland and St Elizabeth experienced the worst damage. She said these three parishes account for a total of US$5.5 billion or 63 per cent of the total damage estimate.

The damage to residental buildings is listed at a whopping US$3.7 billion or 41 per cent of the overall estimate. This represents the largest category of damage and includes houses and their contents as well as mixed use buildings which are characterised as residential.

Damage to non-residential buildings is put at US$1.8 billion and includes commercial, industrial, tourism, as well as public buildings and their contents. Infrastructure damage is estimated at US$2.9 billion while agriculture damage is costed at US$389 million.

-Lynford Simpson