Letter of the Day | After Hurricane Melissa, policy failure is a choice

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I write to express my wholehearted agreement with Allan Alberga’s profound and timely commentary, ‘Hurricane Melissa and Jamaica’s moment of reckoning’, published in The Gleaner of January 10.

Far from a mere chronicle of the storm’s devastation, Alberga’s piece thrusts Jamaica into the clear sight of a historic inflection point. Routine recovery efforts, once sufficient, now fall woefully short amid escalating climate threats. Melissa’s unprecedented fury – winds gusting beyond 200 km/H, killing dozens of people, flooding vast swathes of western parishes, and displacing thousands – serves as irrefutable emblem of a new reality demanding systemic foresight and wisdom.

Alberga masterfully dissects this crisis, urging a fundamental rethink of governance, urban planning, and community engagement. No longer can we afford piecemeal responses; Melissa compels a sustained national project. His erudite counsel – to treat the hurricane not as an aberration but as a clarion call for structural reform – is both morally serious and urgently practical. Reforms must prioritise disaster readiness through upgraded early-warning systems and resilient infrastructure, decentralised decision-making to empower parishes like St Elizabeth and Westmoreland, and shared ownership of resilience via inclusive policies that harness civil society, local communities, the diaspora, and government.

What elevates Alberga’s article to masterpiece status is its adroit balance of sobering realism and inspiring action. He confronts hard truths: our vulnerability stems from decades of centralised planning, environmental neglect, and unequal resource distribution. Yet, he charts a hopeful path, advocating broad participation to forge collective purpose. In post-Hurricane Melissa Jamaica, where the IDB and World Bank estimate rebuilding costs could exceed US$8.8 billion, this wisdom offers not just critique but a compass for transformative governance.

Jamaica stands at a crossroads. Will we squander this reckoning with McGregor Gully muddling – ad hoc fixes and political posturing – or mobilise with mature, methodical resolve? Alberga’s vision demands we choose the latter: invest in climate-adaptive agriculture, enforce strict building codes, and cultivate a culture of preparedness from schools to boardrooms. Leaders like Prime Minister Holness and opposition figures must heed this call, convening a National Resilience Summit to operationalise these ideas.

The Gleaner has long championed such discourse. Let Alberga’s insights galvanise us. Hurricane Melissa merits action, not apathy – eh, Jamaica?

DENNIS MINOTT, PhD

Kingston