Most Jamaicans Acted Responsibly During Hurricane Beryl’s Passage – PM Holness

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, says most Jamaicans acted responsibly during the passage of Hurricane Beryl and took preemptive measures to protect themselves and their property.

He made the remarks during an interview with BBC News on Thursday (July 4) while providing an update on the effects of the category four hurricane which impacted Jamaica on July 3.

Responding to a question on areas of preparedness for a hurricane, Mr. Holness said measures have been implemented by the Government to inform citizens, strengthen and improve Jamaica’s building codes, as well as mainstream climate resilience.

“We have a legislation in our country which mandates that the Government has to put in place measures at the beginning of the hurricane season. Those measures are in place and it starts first with an intensive information campaign, to ensure that every Jamaican understands what we need to do,” he informed.

The Prime Minister said improvements to the country’s building codes have been effected to safeguard against natural disasters such as hurricanes.

“We have improved our building codes to ensure that most of our buildings can withstand hurricane winds, and I believe we are seeing the benefits of those improvements in our building codes. We [also] want our citizens to be able to act responsibly during the hurricane and take measures to protect themselves and their property, and I would say most Jamaicans acted responsibly during the period of the hurricane,” he pointed out.

Mr. Holness said despite the damage sustained across the island, several sectors, except agriculture, were “spared” during the storm’s passage.

Some of the resulting damage included downed trees and light poles, destruction of property and flooded roadways.

“Outside of that kind of damage, our road infrastructure remains largely intact. We should return to normalcy with our airports [reopening]. Our tourism industry has largely been spared and indeed most of our industries; our economic base has been spared, except for agriculture,” Mr. Holness said.

He pointed out that the Government has been mainstreaming climate resilience in all its plans and programmes, “so that we can be able to successfully withstand the impacts of these kinds of disasters.”

These include infrastructure development, fiscal arrangements, and in national security.

“For us, a small island developing state, the issues of climate change are real. Every year countries in this region, and Jamaica in particular, we face weather events, sometimes these are high frequency, low severity events.

“But what we are noticing is that the low frequency, high severity events are becoming more frequent, so the impact on our budget, the exposure to financing in order to recover, all of those have an impact on our economy and our society,” Prime Minister Holness said.

Hurricane Beryl, which is the earliest category five cyclone on record during Atlantic hurricane season, wreaked havoc on Jamaica and several other countries in the Caribbean.