LocationsMore work needs to be done on many fronts to create long term resilience
Hurricane Melissa is a call to prepare for bigger storms ahead
November 24, 2025
One of the most powerful storms ever recorded, Hurricane Melissa tore across the Caribbean with winds and floods, causing widespread damage.
Photo: UNDP Jamaica/Gillian Scott
Hurricane Melissa was truly heartbreaking. Few moments have hit me as hard as watching communities, still recovering from last year’s Hurricane Beryl, brace once again for a storm they could not outrun.
As one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, Hurricane Melissa tore across the Caribbean with winds and floods. More than 4.8 million tonnes of debris now clog roads and rivers in Jamaica alone. In Cuba, nearly 735,000 people were evacuated. Across the region, thousands of homes, farms and businesses lie in ruins.
In a warming world, these storms are no longer ‘once in a lifetime’. They are becoming the new baseline. Even countries that plan well are being tested by hurricanes more powerful, unpredictable and punishing than what our systems are perhaps built for.
A region on the frontline of extreme weather
Melissa is the latest chapter in a pattern that is decades in the making. From Gilbert in 1988 to Mitch in 1998, from Irma and Maria in 2017 to Dorian in 2019, and Beryl just last year, the region has seen hurricanes grow stronger, faster and more frequent.
Scientists have warned this would happen as ocean temperatures rise, and now it is a reality. Communities that faced a severe storm once in a decade now contend with major hurricanes every season.
Preparedness helped save lives. Early alerts were issued, shelters opened, and thousands were moved out of harm’s way. But Melissa also exposed that more work needs to be done on many fronts. Rapid intensification, extreme rainfall and unpredictable tracks are pushing disaster response agencies close to their capacity and exposing the inherent weaknesses in their current state.
Despite the significant progress in Latin America and the Caribbean, 31 percent of people still live in socioeconomic vulnerability. It can take just one crisis, climate related or otherwise, to set back human development because people and institutions lack the resources and mechanisms to cope.
After working for over two decades in disaster risk reduction, I can safely say that resilience is not just about an individual’s ability to bounce back. It is about having systems that can help communities to withstand periodic shocks and continue along a sustainable and prosperous pathway.
It depends on decisions made long before disasters strike: how land-use planning is done, homes are built, how we maintain our critical infrastructure and communities are trained and equipped and how governments invest when the skies are still clear. The goal is to build systems that can deliver not once, but repeatedly, not just now but in the near and distant future.
Resilience building
Hurricane Melissa provided several key lessons. Warnings were issued on time, but people were still unwilling to evacuate in large numbers. Trust deficits remain in the suitability of facilities to offer the basics. Those who had aged houses constructed with poor quality materials were the most affected.
The absence of effective land use planning and development control measures contributed to the extent of the damage and losses. Informal settlements in flood-prone corridors failed when the hurricane dumped more than the average monthly rainfall as it passed.
Hurricane Melissa exposed those who failed to adhere to building standards and invest in timely maintenance. More importantly it highlighted that buildings with roofing infrastructure that followed code and or standards withstood the Category 5 hurricane, dispelling the myth that all damaged houses needed to be replaced with concrete roofing.
The real test of recovery will be whether the country draws from these lessons and ensures that the systems they rebuild today can withstand the next hurricane. We should rebuild with that goal in mind, strengthening building standards, addressing land tenure disparities, practicing more land-use planning and development control, investing in natural buffers and ensuring that early warning systems translate into early action. Recovery must focus on resilience from day one, not as a later add-on.
Caribbean governments now have access to advanced tools. The Jamaica Systemic Risk Assessment Tool (J-SRAT) overlays hazard exposure, climate projections and infrastructure data to show where future storms may hit hardest.
Using these insights during reconstruction allows governments to relocate critical infrastructure, strengthen buildings, redesign drainage and re-route roads.
UNDP is helping embed this shift. Governments are being supported through advanced technical support, from updating building codes and improving risk assessments to expanding early-warning systems that reach every household. These efforts ensure that reconstruction decisions are well thought through for the long-term, not just guided by emergency requirements.
Hurricane Melissa is the latest chapter in a pattern that is decades in the making, with storms becoming stronger and more frequent.
Photo: Zoom Earth
Preparing for the future
Disasters ripple far beyond physical damage: they disrupt incomes, uproot families and deepen inequalities.
After every hurricane, thousands of small businesses, shopkeepers, farmers, food vendors and service providers must replace lost equipment, inventory and income. Only when these enterprises recover can communities move from picking up the pieces of the past to prepare for the future.
This is why a resilient recovery programme must commence from day one. Deploying early interventions that stabilize the situation, bridging surviving a disaster and building long-term resilience. In the first weeks after Melissa, UNDP is supporting governments with practical solutions, from creating short-term jobs through debris removal and repairing community infrastructure to restoring access to water, power and public services.
As communities stabilize, support shifts toward helping people rebuild stronger. UNDP is providing targeted grants to help small businesses reopen and deploying solar-powered systems to keep clinics, shelters and community centres running when the grid goes down. In coastal areas, mangroves and other natural buffers are being restored to protect shorelines from storm surge and erosion.
Together, these efforts form the building blocks of socio-economic stability and long-term resilience.
Financing recovery without sacrificing development
A resilient future also depends on how recovery is financed. Too often, countries must divert long-term development budgets to pay for emergency relief. When disasters strike year after year, this becomes a vicious cycle: funds meant to lift communities out of vulnerability instead go to cleaning up its consequences.
The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) offers parametric insurance that provides rapid payouts based on predefined conditions such as wind speed or rainfall. This model enables governments to access funds within 14 days, supporting immediate response and easing fiscal strain.
But as storms grow more destructive and recovery costs escalate, even rapid insurance payouts cannot fill the widening gap. We urgently need to operationalize and capitalize the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, which can provide the scale of financing required for resilient reconstruction rather than short-term fixes. This must be done in conjunction with the Santiago Network, where countries can access the technical expertise to turn that funding into stronger infrastructure and community protection systems that cut future losses.
Choosing what comes next
Growing up and working across the Caribbean, I have seen how storms shape not just landscapes, but the character of entire communities. The instinct to recover, to restart, rebuild and support one another is part of who we are.
Yet Hurricane Melissa has shown that this resilience must evolve. It is not enough to rebuild; we must rebuild with purpose. We owe it to the next generation to use the lessons from this moment to strengthen homes, protect ecosystems and prepare communities long before the next storm appears offshore. If we take the opportunity, this moment of devastation could lay the foundation for a safer, more resilient Jamaica and ultimately the Caribbean.
