I have always had a special love for the town of Black River, as growing up in deep rural St. Elizabeth, Black River was the closest place we could experience anything close to civilization.
I expressed my love and extreme sadness in a blog, shortly after Melissa destroyed our town.
https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2025/11/i-weep-for-black-rivervictims.html?m=1.
Naturally when I returned to Jamaica, nine months later, Black River was a must visit for me.
That trip brought back the deep sadness at losing such an important part of our diverse history and great disappointment, as it appears so little has been done to try and address the devastation.
For nine months later, Black River I remains a picture of pure desolation.
The vivacity of the town seems also gone and everything seems lost.
How are people even surviving when commercial activity remains almost at a standstill and people's abodes remain so inadequate and depressing, I wondered .
Yes the government has said it will build a new town away from the raging sea. But 9 months later, what has been done to even try and bring back a little normalcy and comfort to the lives of the thousands thousands who lost their homes and small businesses and need to survive while the grandiose plans are being made?
Clearly the lack of action has nothing to do with the availability of funds, since the reports are that hundreds of millions of donated money, sit in the government's coffers while people sink deeper into despair.
It is disgrace too that there is so little sign that the infrastructure is being restored before the next hurricane strikes.
Not even the sea wall has been rebuilt or shored up to protect whats left of our beloved town.
The bridge which had been our pride and joy for so many decades, and which attaches Black River to numerous satellites districts in St. Elizabeth, looks like it can fall into the river at any time.
Driving along the Crane Road to Parotee is even more heart breaking as no structure, residential or commercial seems to have escaped Melissa's wrath.
That area is vulnerable, but living humans have to exist there while the plans are being made.
Nine months later, very few structures look in anyway habitable and in the interim, the area has become one big garbage dump.
Does the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) exost to deal with garbage or is that just a fancy name for another ineffective government agency?
I ask as every inch of that area is covered by nothing but hurricane debris, nine months later.
That same debris which will most likely end up in the water when the next big breeze blows and further destroy whats left of the fragile environment there.
I lived through another major hurricane called Gilbert. That was in 1988, and not only did Gilbert only devastate a few parishes but indeed the entire island.
We got a lot of support from near and far, but even before lights were restored everywhere, you could see signs that a serious and efficient government was in place, as people were quickly employed in every parish to clean up and restore the infrastructure.
Why didn't we see any people at work doing any cleaning up in Black River and its environmens? That area just seems to be at a standstill!
Who cares?
And don't tell me that the NSWMA is busy, as no where in south west or north west Jamaica did we observe even one garbage truck at work.
In fact, in town after town through which we drove from Montego Bay to Black River, we saw signs that people were being responsible, as garbage was neatly piled into huge receptacles along the roadways.
But they were all overflowing as clearly trucks were not coming through to clear the containers.
Jamaicans are supposed to be religious people and one has always heard the phrase cleanliness is next to godliness, but no one seems to have told the comfortable directors in the offices of the NSWMA about that!
Even in Duncan's, Trelawny where not too much hurricane damage was done, when you walk on the streets, the stench of garbage is overwhelming, for since the NSWMA does not seem to collect garbage anymore, people have resorted to dumping their garbage in the drains or that's where it ends up when the collection bins overflow.
Blocked drains and rain are incompatible, so I shudder to think of what awaits people as the government coffers overflow with donated funds, while the garbage piles up and the infrastructure remains vulnerable because nothing is being done while the money sits in banks as the people perish.
Yes, Melissa was a major disaster but the lack of government action which has followed has made life even more hopeless for thousands of our fellow Jamaicans😪.
It's a crying shame.
