Most Jamaicans keep their homes pretty low-key. Huts made with wooden slats or metal sheets dot the landscape along the coast and for miles inland. Most of them are no more than one large room, so families congregate on the fields outside instead. Hustlers hoping to make their money from tourists spend the hot, lazy days on plastic chairs along the road, shouting occasionally at passers by to come and view their goods, buy a beer or share a joint.

Everything on the island is transitory, from the tourists to the real estate. Concrete makes no sense to the citizens of this Caribbean paradise, who know that it only takes one stormy summer to level everything back down to zero. Last year, Hurricane Dean pummeled the island with torrential rain and biting winds. On Thursday, Hurricane Gustav flooded the plains of low-lying areas, including the city of Portmore on the outskirts of Kingston.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Gustav swept along the east side of the Jamaica Thursday, hovering threateningly close to the capital city of Kingston, before creeping further toward the U.S. border. The winds are up to 70 mph, and as the hurricane heads North-East, New Orleanians are being told to evacuate. Meanwhile, Jamaica’s Northern region battles the tropical storm. Residents and tourists in high-risk areas were told Wednesday to evacuate, or hunker down and prepare for a big one. Three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, the people of New Orleans are in panic-mode. But Jamaicans experience the same sense of déjà vu every summer.

In Negril, a tourist haven in West Jamaica famous for its seven-mile beach, Rick’s Café has been rebuilt twice since 1988. Despite towering high above the cliffs, the building was trashed by 25-foot waves during Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988. Rick’s was rebuilt, only to be obliterated on Sep. 11, 2004 by Hurricane Ivan. This time, the waves reached a staggering 80 feet as they crashed over the cliffs and treetops. What was left of Rick’s was strewn along the road. But perseverance has paid off. Negril’s tourists still flock to Rick’s to watch the cliff divers and the sunset while enjoying a goat curry and some creative rum cocktails. If Hurricane Gustav brings the house down for the third time, Rick’s will no doubt start picking up the bits and pieces as soon as the wind dies down.

This regular rotation is part of the Jamaican lifestyle. Being able to carry what you own and start afresh at the first drop of a rain cloud is a skill quickly acquired by residents of this tropical paradise on the hurricane strip. It’s not a fluke catastrophe - it’s geography.

West End Road runs along the shore and up to Rick’s, where a number of cliff-lining restaurants are situated as well as Negril’s quaint lighthouse, making it a famous route for tourist-hauling taxi drivers. At the beginning of August, the route toured a host of abandoned buildings and construction sites on the way. Some of the empty houses are the size of mansions, wood flayed off and decaying, windows gaping open like eye sockets.

According to a driver from Jamaica Tours Limited, foreign money has been buying up real estate on the island. Bill Cosby owns a multi-million mansion on the outskirts of Montego Bay. Considering that most two-bedroom houses cost approximately $20,000 here, a million goes a long, long way in creating the ultimate paradise home. According to The Jamaica Observer, even though real estate prices are relatively low, the industry is booming.

But to the Jamaicans, masterful, luxuriant architecture is ridiculously superfluous and sticks out like a fortress in the jungle. Construction workers wave lazily at passers by as they rebuild the vacation homes that will soon be taken once again by nature’s appetite. At dusk, they leave these castles on the sand and go home to their makeshift huts, watching the horizon for rainstorms.