Jamaica: A Decade Lost in a Day

By Frank Trippett

After Hurricane Gilbert finished howling and hammering Jamaica last Monday, the lovely green-and-gold island had been transformed into a strew of twisted, tilted, ripped and battered debris. Kingston and outlying areas alike were an immense litter of downed trees, broken utility poles, tangles of electrical wires, a vista of demolished houses and blown tin roofs. The more the stunned Jamaicans meandered among the ruins, the worse things looked. Of the 2 1/2 million inhabitants, 500,000 were suddenly homeless; four-fifths of the nation's homes had been damaged or destroyed. Obstructions blocked and sealed off streets and roads. Said Prime Minister Edward P.G. Seaga: "It's the worst natural disaster in our modern history. The storm has left a trail of wreckage the length of the island."

Electrical power and telephone service were wiped out as eight years of hard-won economic progress was smashed like a stomped melon. After surveying the day-after damage, Seaga declared that the impoverished island's economic expansion, percolating at 5% last year, had been set back a decade. That estimate may have been unduly pessimistic, but not by much. Most visibly, the glossy hotels and clubs that pull in the island's tourist trade were left a shambles, especially in the popular north-coast resort areas of Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. The banana crop, which was expected to produce a banner 50,000- ton harvest this year (up from just 10,000 tons in 1984), was largely destroyed. So were the coconut, coffee, sugar and winter-vegetable crops -- and, not a triviality, the ganja, or marijuana, crop, which means cash to many rural Jamaicans.

Poultry farmers, fishing fleets and cultivators of exotic flowers were wasted by Gilbert. Foreign-owned shoe and clothing factories that had been lured to Jamaica's tax-free zones suffered heavy water and structural damage. The unemployment rate, already 22%, was expected to soar as jobs vanished in the wind and rain. It was easy to see a metaphor of the island's economy in the plight of the smashed Kingston bank whose checks, in the aftermath, were suddenly caught up in a wind and scattered all over the downtown. "There were checks blowing around everywhere," retired Superstar Racing-Car Driver Jackie Stewart told the Miami News after weathering the storm with friends on a Kingston hillside.

Wreckage was everywhere too. Ramps around Kingston airport were flung and crumpled like Tinkertoys. The causeway between Kingston and Manley Airport was flooded, and the whole island was left short of food and without safe drinking water. The airport control tower was battered out of commission, and until Thursday air traffic consisted only of military transports carrying relief supplies from the U.S., Canada, Europe and Jamaica's Caribbean neighbors. The hospital in Mandeville lost its roof, and the University Hospital of the West Indies in Mona was severely damaged. With water supplies contaminated, there is fear of an outbreak of cholera, dysentery and other diseases. Property losses will probably run to more than $500 million.

Not since 1951, when Hurricane Charlie whipped through the island, has Jamaica been so brutally crippled. Fortunately, Jamaica is no longer as vulnerable to disaster as it was 37 years ago. "Hurricane Charlie left us with nothing but church and prayers," says Peter King, the country's chief trade representative abroad. "This time we're not rolling over. Our economy is more diversified, and we'll stride forward. We're not going to let the clock run backwards."

Still, Gilbert has left behind a tangled and murky political situation. Only two weeks earlier, Jamaica's two primary political parties had launched their campaigns for an election in which Seaga is being challenged by former Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, the onetime socialist who presided over the economic decline that Seaga inherited. Manley's People's National Party had planned to warm up for the campaign and celebrate its 50th anniversary during an annual convention last week, but it was postponed because of the storm.

Recent polls indicate that the charismatic, crowd-pleasing Manley, who stole Seaga's thunder by purging his party's left wing and improving his relations with the business establishment, would handily win any early election. Some analysts believe the hurricane's devastation may now present Seaga with a dramatic opportunity to rally the country behind him in a reconstruction effort. Manley was quick to recognize that the political climate had changed radically overnight. Said he, after rushing to Kingston last week: "All politics are being put aside. There is not time to deal in partisan issues in this emergency." In the dispiriting climate of post-Gilbert Jamaica, a successful politician may find that victory has a bitter taste.

With reporting by Cristina Garcia/Miami