SHELTERED from the rays of a Sunday afternoon sun by the new roof on her two-bedroom house in Unions Acres, St James, Elaine Edmondson sat on a chair on her patio, enjoying the gentle breeze. But a closer look at the tranquil scene revealed the struggles of a family determined to emerge stronger after Hurricane Melissa barrelled her way inside their home last October, leaving behind a trail of destruction.

The roof’s wooden rafters on the inside still need to be painted, finishing work needs to be done on a section of the patio which also has a cracked window, three interior doors have to be replaced along with the lock on the front door, and all the walls will need to be repainted. Then there is the furniture.

“We lost everything, so we have to go and buy back everything. But we’re just waiting on the entire place to be painted, to wash out the house and clean, and then we move in,” said Edmondson’s partner Glenbert Gillespie, the more vocal half of the couple.

“Right now, what is left in the house, we have to be putting them under tarpaulin when the workmen are here because we are trying to avoid the hassle to go move out what is left and have to go move them back in. So we just put them in the centre of the house whenever they are working, and cover it,” he told the Jamaica Observer’s Real Estate on the Rock last Sunday, eight months and 29 days after Melissa terrorised him and his daughter Kendra inside the house in which the family had lived for only a few months.

A block of houses inside Unions Acres, St James. The ones with the darker coloured roofs were repaired after being damaged by Hurricane Melissa. Photos: Charmaine N Clarke

Edmondson, a health-care professional, was at work during the ordeal, and after a 36-hour shift, returned home to find her house in shambles. Except for the front bedroom, there was nothing between the family and the sky above.

Unions Acres is a 144-unit National Housing Trust (NHT)-financed project built specifically for civil servants. The first set of 50 keys were given out in October 2024 and other residents have been gradually moving in since then. They have NHT mortgages that come with property insurance. That is what has helped some owners get back on track, but there are also several houses still waiting to be repaired, their roofs covered by tattered tarpaulin. Fixing the damage done by Melissa is not cheap.

“It cost in the ballpark of about $3 million to do over the entire house, but the roofing has taken the bulk of the spending,” Gillespie told the Sunday Observer.

The cost of furniture and appliances is not included in that figure.

“We had three TVs in the house. All three of them are gone. The only thing that worked after the hurricane was the stove and the fridge. Every other appliance went. A few days ago I saw my daughter, Kendra, put the blender in a basin and throw rice in it and it started working. The laptops and stuff like those were secured, but we lost everything else: mattress, dresser, we lost everything,” Gillespie explained.

“We had two settees in the house, one we are discarding of it, the other one, we gonna get it wrapped over. We have to buy back a fridge. We have to buy back basically everything: washing machine, you name it,” he added.

Eager to get back to “life before Melissa”, each delay or setback has been agonising. For example, even when the NHT insurance claim was paid over in the last week of April, they had another hurdle to overcome.

“For about six to eight weeks we were having problems finding a contractor. We called about six or seven different contractors — we even spoke to contractors as far as Mandeville and Kingston. Everybody was telling me that they are fully booked. So even with the money we couldn’t do anything, unless we were going to get a little man — and we didn’t want to go that route. We wanted to get somebody reputable because of the magnitude of the work,” said Gillespie.

Eventually, they used a construction company from Montego Bay, one that had replaced a neighbour’s roof.

One of a number of houses in Unions Acres, St James, still waiting for repair to the damage caused by last year’s Hurricane Melissa.

“It’s comprehensive. He’s going to do everything. There’s about a week left because he had initially told us [the work would be done] by the 15th, and then he told us by the end of the month. So, by this weekend, all of [the patio roof] should be painted because they’re coming to spray the roof this week and spray inside,” said a hopeful Gillespie.

Over on the next block, the sound of metalwork and bright flashes of light from a welder’s tool were the first signs that work was on in earnest. A team from a company out of Kingston was finishing up grille work on a patio, there was an enclosure being installed for an external gas drum and they were putting in a clothes line at the back of the house. The homeowner asked not to be identified by name.

She, too, had used her NHT insurance payout to replace her roof. She said the money came “right before the moratorium” on mortgage payments — a lifeline the NHT had extended to help mortgagors cope after the storm. She would not say how much she got from the insurance, but said it covered between 85 and 90 per cent of what it cost to repair her house.

“I provided them with the QS [quantity surveyor] report. They did not give me all of it [the funds needed], but enough. It did fall short, but we got here,” she said from her backyard as workers milled around.

A metal worker puts the finishing touches to a house in Unions Acres, St James, where the Hurricane Melissa-damaged roof was recently repaired.

Compared to many of her neighbours, she was lucky, as she had not yet moved in when the hurricane struck, so she did not lose furniture.

“I was like a week out from moving in. So I basically only had damage to the cupboards, some of the tiles still have watermarks in them, all the doors were ruined, and the walls were badly damaged. The entire house had to be repainted,” she said.

Originally from Kingston, most of the companies working on her house are also from the capital city.

“I chose the company doing the grille through recommendations on social media. I saw other work being done in the community, but it was not to my liking. His work is very, very, very good — Prolific Welders, if anybody wants to know — and he’s all the way from Kingston. I had to pay a travelling fee, but it’s completely worth every penny,” she said with a satisfied grin.

Her roof was also done by a company out of Kingston, selected based on a recommendation from a friend. But even as she revelled in the progress she has made in getting her life back to normal, the young homeowner spared a thought for others who are still struggling.

One of the houses inside Unions Acres, St James, that has a new roof.

“A lot of persons are still waiting. The damage was extensive. A lot of persons were also already moved in, and it was tragic,” she said.

Since moving in herself, she has become quite fond of her community.

“I’m from Kingston, but this is home now,” she said, adding that she has no concerns about another storm hitting.

“It’s a very lovely community. A lot of togetherness, and everybody is just so sweet; and it’s peaceful,” she said.