NaRRA chief tours Black River and Parottee as St. Elizabeth rebuild begins

Major General (Ret’d) Antony Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA), spent Thursday (July 16) among some of St. Elizabeth’s most severely affected communities, speaking with residents as the agency readies recovery and reconstruction work in the parish.

His stopovers included Black River and the fishing settlement of Parottee — both among the districts left in worst condition after Hurricane Melissa struck St. Elizabeth in October last year. The outing sits within NaRRA’s early outreach as it gears up to introduce reconstruction and resilience programmes across Jamaica’s breadbasket parish.

Listening to people whose homes and incomes were upended by the storm is at the core of how the agency intends to proceed.

“It was important for me to come down here to see and also to hear from the people of Parottee and the people of Black River, as to what they think about what has happened, and also just to listen to their ideas about reconstruction and resilience,” General Anderson told JIS News.

In Parottee, community members offered mixed opinions on what recovery and growth should look like. Some said they would consider moving after their houses were wrecked or badly harmed. Others insisted they would stay put, pointing to the sea as their main means of earning a living and to bonds with the place they are not ready to give up.

General Anderson observed that although the community has shown striking strength through hardship, forthcoming reconstruction must rest on scientific study and specialist knowledge if exposure to later disasters is to be cut.

“NaRRA’s promise is to build back better, stronger, more resilient,” the CEO maintained.

He further said engineers, climate specialists and other experts will be central in deciding which rebuilding paths make sense. Their evaluations, he noted, should leave new infrastructure better able to survive hurricanes, climate-linked shocks and other threats such as earthquakes.

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining and Member of Parliament for St. Elizabeth South Western, Hon. Floyd Green, joined the NaRRA group and described the trip as a key moment in crafting a recovery approach that keeps residents at the centre of choices. Input from locals — their worries, suggestions and positions on whether to move or rebuild in place — will feed into a full master plan for Black River and Parottee, he said.

“All our plans… all of our steps, moving forward, [will be guided] by the people. Everything that we do will be data-driven, but people [will always come] first,” Mr. Green said.