In Jamaica, three women whose lives were upended by the destructive force of a hurricane that struck the Caribbean island seek to rebuild their future.
Just before Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica in late October 2025, Rose* took her two children to a friend’s solid concrete house to keep them safe. When they returned the next morning, everything was gone.
“The house was gone,” she said. “I didn’t even see the roof, just a piece of wood.”
A school is serving as a temporary shelter for people whose lives were upended by Hurricane Melissa.
Entire neighborhoods were shattered by the hurricane, which damaged or destroyed 36 percent of homes in the west of the country.
Schools became shelters overnight, transforming classrooms into temporary housing. Roads disappeared under water, power outages spread and thousands were cut off for days.
Nearly half a million people find themselves in precarious living conditions and facing deep uncertainty.
Among them are Rose, Sharon and Sonia – three mothers whose lives changed overnight.
“I have a key but no house”
For nine years, Rose lived in her small wooden house, a donated structure that had become her family’s refuge.
Now only the foundations remain. “I have the key to the house but no house,” she said. The air reeked of mud and rot. Nothing could be saved.
Sonia sits on a bed at a shelter for people who lost their homes to Hurricane Melissa.
Before the storm, Rose worked as a cruise ship dispatcher in Negril and her son as a hotel photographer. Both lost their jobs when the tourism industry shut down.
A few classrooms away, Sharon* faces a similar struggle. She arrived at the shelter with her two young children the same day at her home, and her father’s house collapsed.
Before the storm, she worked as a supervisor at a gas station. Today, his workplace is closed indefinitely. Her children sleep on desks in the stifling heat.
Between the rows of desks and makeshift beds, families share what little they have: a meal, a blanket, a few words of comfort. In the midst of loss, small acts of kindness create fragile bonds.
Living in limbo
More than 1,100 people are still living in 88 shelters in Jamaica, and more than 120,000 homes are in need of urgent repairs after Melissa’s destruction.
Among them is Sonia*, who fled her coastal home carrying her grandson suffering from heart disease.
“I don’t know how to swim, so I grabbed him and ran,” she remembers.
Since the start of the emergency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) The teams have supported the Jamaican Government and the wider UN response, providing tarpaulins, shelter repair materials, hygiene kits, generators and other essential goods to families whose homes have been damaged or destroyed.
For women like Rose, Sharon and Sonia, every day is a test of endurance and solidarity. Their homes are gone, but the support of their communities helps them move forward.
Their lives, once far apart, are now linked by loss, uncertainty and the slow process of rebuilding.
*Names changed to protect identities
Publicado anteriormente en Almouwatin.
