Melissa’s hidden toll

A significant portion of Jamaica’s heritage assets was lost when Hurricane Melissa battered the island last October, with the possibility that valuable archaeological treasures buried underground were also washed away. According to Debra Kay Palmer, director of world heritage and cultural conventions at the Ministry of Culture, the damage unleashed by Category 5 Melissa extended beyond the parishes of St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Trelawny, and St James which bore the brunt of the storm’s rage. “It extended to the east where our world heritage properties would also have been impacted, which is the context you may not know.

The Blue and John Crow Mountains would have been impacted and to a smaller extent Port Royal,” Palmer divulged during a Hurricane Melissa Data Symposium hosted by The University of the West Indies, Mona in St Andrew on Wednesday, October 28, exactly one year since Melissa’s onslaught. She said data collection in the aftermath of the hurricane from the United Nations Satellite Centre, which provided the initial information on the impact across western Jamaica, had identified 202 properties with varying levels of destruction ranging from sites destroyed, severely damaged, moderately damaged, possibly damaged, and no visible damage. Palmer told the forum that a further damage and loss assessment, which saw the ministry’s agencies going out to verify the data, found that 73 per cent of cultural sites in the St Elizabeth area sustained damage, 64 per cent in Westmoreland, and 35 per cent, 17 per cent and 13 per cent in Trelawny, Manchester, and Clarendon, respectively. She said, however, 75 per cent of all the destroyed sites were found in St Elizabeth and 40 per cent was completely damaged. The amount of impact on heritage assets, Palmer said, stands at…