Rains since October 28, 2025 when Hurricane Melissa lashed Jamaica with Category 5 force have been nothing less than harrowing for anyone on the compound of Green Pond High School in Montego Bay which was brought to its knees by the monster storm.

While the tenacious principal, staff and students daily trudge to the space which is a shell of its former self — with roofless classrooms, downed perimeter fencing, and evidence of flooding everywhere — any new downpour comes with a more haunting reminder.

“The building is really compromised; seriously compromised. You hear screams when it rains, students are going back through the ordeal of Hurricane Melissa. Everywhere gets wet, even in my office, once it starts to rain, you sit down water is dripping all around, everywhere in the school gets wet,” Principal Oraine Ebanks told this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s Corporate Area headquarters.

According to Ebanks, the virtual lifeline thrown to Green Pond High by corporate giant Sagicor Group Jamaica Limited — which has made the two decade-old school one of five beneficiaries of the 2026 Sagicor Sigma Corporate Run — is “the 20th anniversary gift” which will hopefully help reduce such triggers.

Through the run Sagicor aims to raise $150 million to help repair five hurricane-affected schools in western Jamaica — Salt Marsh Primary, Mayfield Primary and Infant, Hopewell High, Green Pond High, and Little London High.

“We are grateful for Sagicor, and what we know is that if Sagicor’s name is on anything it is going to be done well. I don’t know how Green Pond was selected, it was a blessing for us, but we are happy that Sagicor has Green Pond as a part of the five schools… my colleagues are grateful to know that Sagicor [will help],” said Ebanks, who appeared alongside Venesha Brown-Gordon, acting principal of Salt Marsh Primary and Infant School in Trelawny; and Garfield James, principal of Little London High School in Westmoreland.

Ebanks, who said Green Pond High was still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Beryl, which sideswiped Jamaica in July 2024, only to be hit by Melissa last year, shared that the damage wreaked on the school plant is still being quantified.

“The school is recently built, pre-fab material, and Melissa shook, and for those who are in the East up here, you don’t understand until you are in it. There are persons who were twirled out of their houses. That’s how dangerous it was; [they were] inside their house, the storm hit out the windows and they were pulled out. That’s how serious it was, and the school got extensive damage. We lost corridor awnings, we lost roofs. The entire school was flooded [from] a surge [caused by a failed drainage system] and the offices, classrooms, every single area in the school facility flooded,” Ebanks shared.

It was, he said, a litany of loss.

“We lost our sports facility, the perimeter fencing. We lost our gazebo, that’s where we have the students for lunch. We lost all of that. We lost files. The book room was totally flooded, 50 per cent damage; electronic equipment and so on. It was really a fight,” the principal told Observer editors and reporters.

Despite the devastation, he said the school, with the help of the community, students from other schools, and entities has rallied, albeit still under open skies for now.

“In a few weeks [after the hurricane], we got back the school to a place where we were able to hold students, albeit some of the classes were sky view (roofless). The idea was to return them to a safer space; most of them would have lost their entire houses, our staff members too would have lost their entire houses. I lost my father during that time as well. It was a difficult time,” Ebanks said.

In the meantime, he said while the Category 5 hurricane was a grim reaper, it made one standout deposit.

“There is one thing that we learned from Hurricane Melissa, it is that we love our neighbour as ourselves. It magnified the word ‘neighbour’. It brought everybody close together as a school. We got support from St Thomas Technical [High School] way in the east; they came down and gave us a day that helped us to return our students to school. We also got support from Kemps Hill [High School] way in Clarendon; they came and they gave us a day to help us clean up. The support was good. The community rallied with us; they came on board, they were there every day cutting down trees. It was a very good effort… different partners came in to support us with exam fees for our students,” the principal said further.

For now, he said school continues as best it can, with some students still without uniforms, while others have no electricity or Internet access.

“As it is now, we are not able to host all our students at once. Every day we are one grade short. Our parents, they work mostly in the hotel industry, and if you know about what is going on down there, the hotel will not be open until September, December, and so on,” Ebanks said.

Christopher Zacca, president and chief executive officer of Sagicor Group Jamaica and chairman of Sagicor Foundation, clearly impacted by the stories shared by Ebanks and the other educators, said it was imperative that less-impacted Jamaicans remember that others of their countrymen are still nowhere near normality.

“You know, hearing these on-the-ground stories we, in Kingston in particular, we stand a risk that we lose sight of just the level of challenges that people in the west are facing. I think it is important that the media, and certainly Sigma Run, help to continue to highlight the tragedy that happened,” he said sombrely.

“A lot of improvement, a lot of recovery is taking place. Maybe starvation is not the biggest thing anymore, water is coming back, some electricity; a lot of good efforts. But there are still a lot of challenges that are being faced by children and adults in the west. I think it is important we don’t forget that across the country,” Zacca underscored.

Sagicor Group Jamaica’s Vice-President Communications, Digital Media and Corporate Social Responsibility Nicole Campbell Robinson, in driving home the point, said of all the numbers which come into play with the run, the most important figure for the entity presently is the 3,000 students whose lives the company hopes can be restored to some level of normality.

“The $150 million [target] is important. The 30,000 participants are important. But I think the most important number for all of us is 3,000 students getting back into a safe space. That is the number,” she emphasised.

Now in its 28th year, the Sagicor Sigma Corporate Run has raised more than $878 million in support of health, child-focused, education-based initiatives across Jamaica.

The 5.5 kilometre run is scheduled for Sunday, February 15, 2026 starting on Knutsford Boulevard. Registration opened December 4, 2025 and closes January 30, 2026.

Hurricane Melissa, which now holds pride of place as the most extreme storm ever to hit Jamaica, packing winds of 185 miles per hour, made landfall on October 28 near New Hope, Westmoreland, causing ruinous flooding across the southern and western belt of the island.

The system, which mauled St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover, Montego Bay in St James, and Trelawny — with the most impacted being St Elizabeth and Westmoreland — exited the country via the north-western coast after effecting untold damage on infrastructure, livestock, vegetation, and lives.

Sagicor Group Jamaica’s Vice President Communications, Digital Media and Corporate Social Responsibility, Nicole Campbell-Robinson addressing this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s Corporate Area headquarters where details of the 2026 Sagicor Sigma Corporate Run to raise $150 million to help repair five schools in Western Jamaica significantly affected by Hurricane Melissa were shared. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)

Sagicor Group Jamaica President and CEO Christopher Zacca, who is also chairman of Sagicor Foundation, drives home a point during this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange during which details of the 2026 Sagicor Sigma Corporate Run, slated for Sunday, February 15 were unveiled. (Photo: Karl Mclarty)