Seven months after Hurricane Melissa swept through Jamaica’s southwestern parishes, leaving a trail of billions of dollars in damage and widespread service disruptions, the Caribbean nation is gearing up for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially kicks off on June 1 and runs through November 30. Major public utility companies across the island say they have integrated hard-won lessons from last year’s storm into extensive upgrades, leaving them as prepared as possible to face whatever the new season brings.
Forecasters at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are projecting a below-normal season for 2025, giving the island some breathing room after last year’s destructive storm. The agency’s latest outlook puts the probability of a below-normal season at 55%, compared to a 35% chance of near-normal activity and just a 10% chance of an above-normal season. In total, NOAA expects between eight and 14 named storms (systems with sustained winds of 39 mph or higher) to form this season. Of those, three to six are forecast to strengthen into hurricanes with winds of 74 mph or above, and one to three of those are expected to develop into major hurricanes carrying winds of 111 mph or higher.
Last week, representatives from Jamaica’s four largest critical service providers — mobile and fixed network operators Digicel and Flow Jamaica, electric utility Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), and the National Water Commission (NWC) — laid out their comprehensive preparedness plans during a Jamaica Observer Press Club held at the newspaper’s Kingston headquarters, confirming their infrastructure and response systems have been upgraded to withstand future storm events.
For JPS, which suffered the most severe damage from Hurricane Melissa, the recovery and rebuilding process has been a transformative one. The storm caused an estimated $3.5 billion in damage to the company’s transmission and distribution networks, cutting power to more than 540,000 customers across the island. Speaking at the event, JPS Chief Operating Officer Lance Becca told reporters that power has now been restored to more than 99.9% of affected customers, with only a small number of isolated connections still pending work.
Rather than simply replacing damaged infrastructure with identical materials, Becca explained that JPS has used the recovery period to build stronger, more wind-resistant systems. “We’re not just going back with the same old poles,” he said. “We’re using thicker poles, and we’ve adopted a new technology called PoleCrete, a rapid-setting backfill that secures pole foundations far more effectively than traditional materials. We’ve also added more storm guides to anchor poles, making them far more resistant to the high winds that come with hurricane systems.” All lessons identified during the response to Hurricane Melissa have now been integrated into the company’s new season planning, he added.
Digicel’s Chief Executive Officer Stephen Murad noted that hurricane preparedness has become an ongoing, permanent part of the company’s operations rather than a pre-season activity. “I don’t think we have been out of hurricane preparation and execution for the past two years, so I don’t think hurricane prep really exists as a one-off phrase any more in our world,” Murad said, referencing back-to-back storm activity dating to Hurricane Beryl in July 2024.
Within three months of Hurricane Melissa hitting Jamaica last October, Digicel had restored 100% service to both its mobile and fixed network customers. Since that recovery was completed, the company has focused on expanding and hardening its infrastructure. It has added 10 new communication towers, bringing its total network to 935 towers, with five more planned for construction this year to improve coverage amid Jamaica’s growing number of high-rise buildings, which can block wireless signals. The company has also laid additional fibre transport routes, deployed more solar-powered cell sites, and built out alternative connectivity options via satellite and microwave technology to keep networks running during extended outages. Operationally, Digicel has also refined its large-scale fuel distribution protocols to keep backup generators running for longer periods during grid disruptions.
“Up to the hurricane we had 925 towers in Jamaica as part of this expansion programme…Every year we will build more towers, because we need more coverage. More high-rise buildings in Jamaica means coverage is intercepted by concrete and steel, so we need to continually expand our infrastructure to meet that need,” Murad explained. “I always think the most important thing is you have to learn and learn quickly, and do things differently, because I think the public would not forgive us if we didn’t learn from our experiences and adapt.”
Flow Jamaica’s Vice-President and General Manager Stephen Price said the company has also poured hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure upgrades since Hurricane Melissa, adapting to a 60% jump in network demand as Jamaicans increasingly rely on digital services. As of the Press Club event, 100% of Flow’s mobile customers have had their service fully restored, while 82% of fixed network customers are back online, with remaining recovery work ongoing. Price noted that network traffic across Flow’s networks has grown roughly 60% since last October, reflecting a steady increase in digital adoption across the country.
To date, Flow has invested approximately US$85 million in core network infrastructure and an additional US$27 million to expand spectrum capacity. The company has also buried 80 kilometers of vulnerable transmission cables underground to protect them from wind damage, and reinforced critical sub-sea cable landing sites in storm-prone areas including Negril and Black River to reduce risk from storm surge. Through a new partnership with Starlink, Flow now has direct-to-cell satellite capabilities that support roughly 40% of its mobile network, dramatically expanding its disaster recovery options for both residential and business customers.
“While no network is completely immune to any kind of extreme weather event, what is key is that we have robust business continuity plans in place to respond as quickly as possible when storms hit,” Price said. “We are as prepared as we can be for this season.”
Even the National Water Commission, which is still completing repairs to some damaged infrastructure, says it is entering the new season in a far stronger position than it was ahead of Hurricane Melissa. NWC Acting Corporate Public Relations Manager Delano Williams told the Press Club that water service has been restored to between 98% and 99% of the commission’s 551,000 customers, though the storm caused such widespread damage that some communities still experience intermittent service while repairs are finalized.
“Almost no infrastructure escaped unscathed from the scale of damage Hurricane Melissa brought. Even our 100,000-gallon storage tanks were decimated,” Williams said. “What that means is that even while we’ve restored most of our facilities, there are still places where water supply has not come back to its optimum regularity. Where residents used to get water seven days a week, they may now get it four or five days while we complete repairs to damaged pipelines and rehabilitate saturated wells.”
To address these vulnerabilities, the NWC is investing approximately $1.2 billion in backup power and resilience projects. The commission has already begun procuring mobile backup generators, which will be deployed at both primary treatment plants serving major town centers and secondary distribution facilities that deliver water to inland and rural communities. It is also rehabilitating damaged wells and developing alternative water sources across the island to reduce reliance on single systems during storms. When asked if Jamaicans should feel confident heading into the new season, Williams gave a clear answer: “My short answer is yes.”
The 2025 hurricane season comes as Jamaica continues to clean up and rebuild from the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, with utility companies across the island emphasizing that every lesson from the 2024 storm has been used to strengthen their ability to serve customers through future extreme weather events.