Reporter Natricia Duncan recounts surviving Jamaica’s most powerful hurricane on record
When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica on Tuesday, it became the most powerful storm ever recorded on the island, leaving behind catastrophic damage, widespread flooding, and a trail of destruction that residents say will take years to rebuild.
In the latest episode of Today in Focus, the Guardian’s Caribbean correspondent Natricia Duncan describes what it was like to live through the storm while reporting on its aftermath. She speaks with host Nosheen Iqbal about the challenge of balancing her duties as a journalist with her responsibilities as a mother, caring for her daughter as winds of more than 200mph tore through the island.
“Most of my neighbours’ roofs are gone,” said Ava Brown, a resident of St Catherine parish. “Crops and animals have drowned. Roads are impassable. People have died. I heard an unconfirmed report that one of the hospitals is almost unusable. It’s a disaster.”
In Treasure Beach, also in St Catherine, Darin described how his community is rallying in the aftermath. “In the house I lived in, I lost the ceiling and the roof, so it’s not livable,” he said. “People are walking the streets right now, looking around to see how they can help each other. There is a lot of devastation.”
Speaking from Jamaica’s south-west coast, Duncan recalls witnessing the storm’s immense power firsthand. After emerging from shelter, she found roads washed away, entire villages flattened, and families searching for missing loved ones. “The scale of destruction was something I had never seen before,” she said. “There was this eerie silence afterwards — the kind that only comes when everything familiar has been blown away.”
The episode also explores the wider implications of Hurricane Melissa for the Caribbean’s climate resilience. With sea temperatures at record highs and extreme weather events becoming more frequent, Jamaica’s recovery poses questions about how smaller island nations can protect themselves against future disasters.
Duncan and Iqbal discuss how the storm has exposed deep inequalities in infrastructure and preparedness, and what lessons might be learned as the Caribbean braces for a new era of intensified hurricanes.
Today in Focus: Living through the horror of Hurricane Melissa is presented by Nosheen Iqbal with reporting by Natricia Duncan. Produced by Cass Denton, Annie Kelly, Sinéad Campbell, Ivor Manley, and Joel Cox. Executive producer: Courtney Yusuf.