Viewing hurricane damage in Jamaica
Last week we went on a family vacation that included a stop in Falmouth, Jamaica. Falmouth is a small town on the north side of the island situated to the east of Montego Bay. This was our first visit to Jamaica.
Hurricane Melissa passed right over this region last October. This storm made landfall with 185 mph (300 km/h) sustained winds. It is tied for the strongest landfalling hurricane recorded in the Atlantic basin.
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Hurricane Melissa was moving from south to north as it transited Jamaica so communities on the northern coast like Falmouth did not get the worst of it, but “not as bad as the worst ever” is still pretty bad when we’re discussing hurricanes.
Before I report on what I saw as we spent the day in Jamaica I want to reiterate that this was my first time in the country. I have tried to identify what was from the hurricane vs. what existed in this state before the storm, but it is inevitable that I am not 100% accurate. Still, the obvious damage I saw was something I had never experienced before.
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Homes in various states of construction or destruction on the hill near Falmouth, Jamaica. (Ingalls Weather)
The first thing that stood out to me on arrival was that many of the trees were significantly defoliated. The land was still quite green but it’s clear that the tree canopy is not as dense as it once was.
Driving from Falmouth toward Montego Bay the hill is full of homes in various states of disrepair. We aren’t talking missing siding or shingles, either, but something like half of the homes didn’t have roofs and many were just concrete shells. Some were being reconstructed while others just sat in ruin.
Easily half of the homes I saw were damaged to the point that they would have been condemned in the United States or Canada but a lot of these were still occupied. I saw a few residents milling about but of course many were probably at work when I passed through during the day on a weekday.
By my visual estimate, around 90-95% of buildings showed signs of recent damage. I only saw four buildings in what I would say are in excellent condition – two KFCs, a Wendy’s, and a Scotiabank branch.
I could also pick out where the worst of the winds seemed to hit and what communities have wealthier economies. The closer we got to Montego Bay, the less severe damage we saw. Falmouth seemed like a shell of its former self, but as I understand it it was already struggling economically before Hurricane Melissa despite receiving many tourists from cruise ships.
As a meteorologist I have seen a lot of reporting on natural disasters and I have personally visited a few disaster zones myself. Aside from this, the worst I had seen was the damage caused by grapefruit size hail in Blair, Nebraska in 2014. The aftermath of that storm looked like someone had taken a machine gun to the north and west faces of every building but for the most part homes were still standing and livable.
Meteorologists and weather nerds often get accused of enjoying seeing disasters like this and “rooting” for cataclysmic storms. As a practitioner of the science it is genuinely awesome to see the power of the world around us but the cost in some cases is extreme. In an ideal world we could observe huge tornadoes on desolate plains and massive hurricanes in the middle of the ocean but the sad reality is this is rare.
Documenting and sharing the aftermath of these storms is a critical part of educating ourselves and those we speak with. The uncertainty associated with forecasting high end events like this leads to a lot of warning fatigue in at risk communities. It is difficult for communicators to balance messaging in what are relatively low likelihood events with catastrophic and deadly ramifications.
Tornadoes are notorious for this because they are quite small and short lived but this even happens with large events like hurricanes. Even in major hurricanes (category 3+), the damaging wind field can be surprisingly small. In many cases hurricane force winds will only extend tens of miles/kilometers from the center of the storm.
The evacuation zone can often be much wider, though, because we simply don’t have that level of accuracy on the hurricane’s path far enough in advance to conduct a successful evacuation of thousands of people. A shift of 20-50 miles (30-80 km) in the forecast does happen in the days leading up to hurricane landfall but if we waited until we knew exactly where it would land it would be too late to get people out.
That’s just considering the wind field. The biggest hazard from most tropical cyclones is actually flooding from heavy rainfall and that has its own difficulty in communicating. This was seen in the Pacific Northwest in March when most people had no issues but significant flooding was observed along waterways like the Walla Walla River.
This is a complex issue on the social science side as well. Evacuating is both financially and emotionally expensive. Not everyone has the means to leave their home with a few days notice and travel hundreds of miles/kilometers away. Some people will be taking unpaid time off work to do this while others have added difficulty brought on by healthcare needs.
I’m often aware of a lot of judgment thrown around during and after catastrophes like this. Some is thrown at meteorologists for perceived overhype of a storm while others who have never experienced something like this judge those who stayed behind. The world could use a lot more patience and understanding as people try to make the best decisions they can with the information they have to protect themselves and others.
Improving forecast accuracy is one of the things I’m most excited about with my new job at Windborne Systems. The weather balloon data we collect feeds into our internal model as well as to the GFS and others. We are scaling up our operation rapidly to collect more data.
Part of my role is to highlight regions where balloons are needed to get improved forecasts on upcoming major weather events. During April I helped to get balloons in the path of the low pressure system that turned into the severe weather outbreak on the Plains, a typhoon that hit Guam, and severe weather in Paraguay and Argentina. I find a lot of value in this work.
I didn’t really expect this to turn into a bit of soap box style work when I started writing this article but I think it works. Readers should note that I have a lot of work related travel coming up so this blog (and associated social media) will be a bit of a travelogue for a while as I have the opportunity to explore the world while launching weather balloons.
As I do so I hope to bring you more stories and observations from these places, as well as connections to regional climates.
#Hurricane #Jamaica #Melissa #Weather
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