PAROTTEE, St Elizabeth — Residents set to benefit from the choice of relocation from the hurricane-ravaged coastal community of Parottee to nearby Luana remain divided on taking up the offer, even after last week’s update from Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

Fifty-year-old Mary Linton, who has lived in Parottee all her life, is ready to move. She cannot forget her ordeal when Hurricane Melissa struck on October 28, 2025.

“The experience that I had during Melissa when the sea take we, if me even hear ‘huri’ me nah wait pon ‘cane’. Once I have a place can go to, I am moving,” she told the Jamaica Observer during a visit to the community Sunday.

A few days earlier, on Wednesday, Holness said two rounds of consultation had already been done with residents and stakeholders about the planned relocation. Speaking during the ground-breaking ceremony for the $3.7-billion Luana Gardens phase four development, he addressed the Government’s plan to facilitate the relocation to Luana.

“We have been very careful, because there have been all kinds of things being said which are absolutely not true. There is no intention to dispossess the people of Parottee of their land, their livelihood and their homes. If it [the circumstances] were as normal, they [could] stay. Parottee is a long-established community, a fishing village, but it was not always connected by road; sometimes the swampy area would overtake it and it recedes — and that is going to happen with even greater frequency,” the prime minster explained.

The relocation plan has given Linton hope.

“My problem is the property is a family house, so if we get one of the houses in Luana I am going to move and I am going to carry my mother with me, because we live together,” she said in reference to her household of four.

One of the many houses in Parottee, St Elizabeth battered by category five Hurricane Melissa last year. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

“My mother is 77 and my 22 year-old daughter, who is just about to leave college, lives here,” she added.

Linton said some neighbours have expressed a willingness to move, but others are adamant that they will stay. She foresees challenges over family land.

“My concern is where I have a lot of family and their houses are gone altogether. They can’t build back where their houses were. The sea came in and they don’t see back their house,” she explained.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness (third left); along with (from left) chairman of the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) Norman Brown, Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Infrastructure Development Arlene Williams, Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth South Western Floyd Green, Managing Director of the Housing Agency of Jamaica Doreen Prendergast; and National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority chief executive officer Major General Antony Anderson breaking ground for the $3.7-billion Luana Gardens phase four development on Wednesday.

“There are some people in Parottee who just cannot build back where they lived. My sister, who is overseas, would have to give up here, because she inherited it from our father,” Linton added.

For Ridge Harvey, who operates Captain Ridge Boat Tours in the community, leaving Parottee is not an option.

“I am not leaving. I repaired my place, my boat and its engine and I am just coming back from sea, so I am not going to relocate,” he told the Observer Monday.

When asked about neighbours who cannot afford to rebuild, Harvey said it would be nonsensical for them to move into smaller houses.

“A lot of people lost their homes, cars and boats. Mentally it is stressful, but that doesn’t mean we should relocate. To me, anybody who wants to relocate is foolish, because if I have a four-bedroom house and I relocate to a two-bedroom house how does that make sense?” he asked.

“It is beachfront land, so I am not leaving it. I will figure it out and fight the storm until better comes. I am an entrepreneur with a boat tour to Pelican bar and if I don’t feel like doing that I can buy and sell fish and supply the 14 parishes, so I don’t plan to leave here. Just by leaving here my resources would be wiped out. From the rich to the poor, everybody gets storms.

Rich people don’t have storms too like poor and middle-class people? There are people living here who have 10- and 12-bedroom homes and they don’t plan to leave, so with my four-bedroom I don’t want to leave. When the Government relocates the people what are they going to do with the land?” asked Harvey.

Like him, Puncie Bennett Munroe is adamant that she will not leave Parottee and wants to rebuild her house.

“What am I going to Luana to do? People not leaving their land in Parottee. Government should come into Parottee and fix our roads and restore piped water. Now we have to buy it from the truck,” she said.

“Right now is people house me deh. Government came and took down my name and all now I don’t get any assistance. It’s like they don’t recognise us. Where is the money to look after the people?” she asked.