Border bounces back from hurricane ruin
Published:Tuesday | December 2, 2025 | 12:09 AMPaul H. Williams/Gleaner Writer
Scott’s Cove, on the St Elizabeth side of the border with Westmoreland, was once idyllic. Category 5 Hurricane Melissa changed that.
On one side of the cove sat a fishing village; on the other, roadside shacks sold fried fish, which have a distinctive taste, bammy and soups.
Border was a must-stop for locals and overseas visitors seeking seafood. People travelled from far and wide for its fish. But Hurricane Melissa had no regard for Border’s idyllic charm or culinary fame. She tore through, ripping, mangling and destroying everything in her path.
When The Gleaner visited on November 11, fishermen lamented their losses, saying they felt like “fish out of water.” Vendors’ shacks and utensils were gone with Melissa’s winds, and the ecosystem behind where the structures used to be was also upended; but, birds were still scouring the place for morsels.
By November 30, another wind was blowing — one of change. Border was bustling again. Vehicles lined the roadside, carpenters hammered new booths, and business was brisk.
The revival is a collaboration between government, music star Sean Paul and corporate chef Brian Lumley, a volunteer with World Central Kitchen.
“There was nothing there, and they decided that they will open up. I rather to reward Jamaicans who get back on track without sitting on the roadside asking for help. They went immediately back to work, at their place of business. Our intention is to help people like that, to get back their business up and running,” chef Lumley, who is a volunteer with World Central Kitchen, told The Gleaner.
Lumley said he rallied vendors, stressing unity. “I told them, I’m not your MP, I can’t get you everything, but I will ask. Sean Paul came onboard, and eventually government joined in. We agreed to collaborate rather than overlap.”
“I come here every Thursday, and do the follow-up and treatment. And then government came in. I guess they didn’t know that we had already started … I had been trying to get through to them … After two weeks we got through to them … I said, you are doing something, we are doing something, we don’t want to overlap, let us put together and collaborate, and the minister agreed.”
Vendors are upbeat. Chris Ferguson, a long-standing figure at Border, said: “Oh, am feeling very excellent, it couldn’t be better, for we having a facelift, and we getting help, and the help that we are getting is to put us back on our feet. This is the best facelift we have got since border existed.”
Melissa struck on Tuesday, October 28. He said he tried to get back on his feet by Thursday, though things had not been rosy even before the storm. Then the storm came along and added pepper and onion to his wounds.
Nearby, soup vendor Jeffrey Wat prepared chicken feet and neck. He lost all his utensils but is grateful for a new booth. “I am trying, I am fighting,” he said.
Though yet to fully recover his loss, he’s happy to be receiving one of the new booths, and believes he will overcome.
Natalie Lloyd, whose shop Sean Paul helped rebuild, said she was out of business for two weeks after her windows and doors were blown out. “Things are getting back little by little, but not fully,” she said.