The Bottom Line - Melissa's Damage Costs Climb

Melissa’s Damage Costs Climb

March 11, 2026

Hurricane Melissa is more expensive than originally thought. The total cost is now up to $2 TRILLION! Yes, trillion with a T.

The social costs carry the most weight, and recovery may even take longer than expected. We're looking at years to recover. Are you surprised by this or did you expect costs to be so high?

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The total cost of Hurricane Melissa has now climbed to about J$2trillion, or roughly US$12 billion! That’s twice as much as previously estimated.

So the Planning Institute of Jamaica just released its new Melissa estimates. The damage is now estimated at a whopping 57% of GDP.

Earlier estimates were between US$6 to 8 billion, or roughly 41% of GDP.

The price tag makes Melissa not just the most powerful storm to hit the country, but also the most expensive disaster in Jamaica’s history.

To put that into perspective, Hurricane Gilbert, the devastating 1988 storm many Jamaicans still talk about, caused roughly US$1 billion in damage at the time. That would be about US$3 billion in 2026. Melissa’s economic impact is now estimated to be four times larger. And the cost is still climbing.

So where is all that damage coming from?

According to the PIOJ, a comprehensive damage and loss assessment by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the government examined three broad areas: social and productive sectors, infrastructure and the environment.

According to the assessment, the social impact had the greatest impact on GDP, about $822 billion.

Entire communities were flattened, more than 150,000 structures were damaged, and thousands of families were left homeless. Tourism took a major hit as well, with many hotels damaged and airports and ports disrupted. Agriculture also suffered massive losses, with tens of thousands of farmers affected and millions of animals lost. And when you combine all of that, housing, roads, schools, hospitals, tourism and agriculture, the economic impact quickly adds up.

Damage to the productive sectors had the second largest impact- almost $800 billion, followed by damage to the environment – $200 billion and then damage to infrastructure – $130 billion.

But beyond the physical damage, the bigger issue for Jamaica is the economic shock.

According to the PIOJ, Jamaica’s economy declined 7.5% between October and December.

And for a small island economy like Jamaica’s, shocks of this scale are especially difficult to absorb. Recovery will take years, not months.

And that’s the bottom line.