Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter 

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

As Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa moves in­to the At­lantic and be­gins to weak­en, res­i­dents of Ja­maica are strug­gling to com­pre­hend the ex­tent of the death and de­struc­tion she has caused.

For Ja­maican na­tion­al Leon Crooks, the pas­sage of the hur­ri­cane will for­ev­er be etched in his mem­o­ry, a night of ter­ror, chaos, and sur­vival.

“It was a night­mare ex­pe­ri­ence, the winds sound­ed like wail­ing, the win­dows and doors, it did not mat­ter if you bat­tened them up, any lit­tle space and wa­ter came in, you re­al­ly could not imag­ine it,” Crooks re­called yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia from his storm-rav­aged com­mu­ni­ty in the cen­tral parish of Man­ches­ter, the fa­ther of one strug­gled to find words to de­scribe the or­deal that un­fold­ed as the cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane roared through Ja­maica with pound­ing rain­fall and fe­ro­cious winds the night be­fore.

“Over the me­dia, we heard of three deaths, there may be more,” he said, his voice trem­bling.

Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness yes­ter­day des­ig­nat­ed the coun­try as a dis­as­ter zone, grant­i­ng of­fi­cials ad­di­tion­al pow­ers to im­ple­ment manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tions in in­un­dat­ed ar­eas and to ban price goug­ing.

He told the na­tion dur­ing one of his state­ments, “As Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa un­leashed its trail of de­struc­tion, it de­stroyed hos­pi­tals in its path, sheared off be­tween 80-90 per cent of roofs, wrecked po­lice sta­tions and li­braries, and razed lo­cal in­fra­struc­ture. The dam­age is great, but we are go­ing to de­vote all our en­er­gy to mount a strong re­cov­ery,”

Ja­maica’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, Desmond McKen­zie, said the hur­ri­cane was “one of the most se­vere events that Ja­maica has ever faced.”

In an up­date yes­ter­day, McKen­zie re­port­ed that four peo­ple died in the St Eliz­a­beth area. That fig­ure was lat­er up­dat­ed to six by the po­lice. (See page 15)

“They were dis­cov­ered af­ter be­ing washed up by the flood wa­ters gen­er­at­ed by the hur­ri­cane.”

Crooks not­ed that the ef­fects of the colos­sal hur­ri­cane were felt across the re­gion.

“Talk about dev­as­ta­tion, you’re talk­ing about Black Riv­er, the West side of the is­land, Mon­tego Bay, the air­port, the hos­pi­tal, the Black Riv­er hos­pi­tal, it is just dev­as­ta­tion.”

Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa was one of the strongest At­lantic hur­ri­canes record­ed since records be­gan, and the most pow­er­ful trop­i­cal cy­clone to strike Ja­maica in al­most 200 years.

Ac­cord­ing to Crooks, fear gripped house­holds as the hur­ri­cane bat­tered the is­land through the night, with fam­i­lies hud­dling to­geth­er in dark­ness, lis­ten­ing to the crash of de­bris out­side.

“I am still grate­ful for life and my fam­i­ly, even though we haven’t heard from a few of our fam­i­ly mem­bers in Mon­tego Bay and St Eliz­a­beth. We are go­ing to try and look for them, the min­is­ter said, those who weren’t af­fect­ed, if they can go help the west­ern half of the is­land.”

Al­so speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the UWI Mona Trinidad and To­ba­go Stu­dent As­so­ci­a­tion, Bre­an­na Bethel, said that with the worst now be­hind them, stu­dents from T&T are ral­ly­ing be­hind af­fect­ed peo­ple to lend a help­ing hand.

“If I can, I would love to help, and I’ve al­ready seen a cou­ple of peo­ple ask­ing if they had the vol­un­teer forms as they were ready to help.”

Bethel said she and oth­er lo­cal stu­dents were re­lieved to be un­scathed fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the hur­ri­cane.

Across Ja­maica, Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa left a trail of dev­as­ta­tion, flat­tened and sub­merged homes, downed pow­er lines, and en­tire com­mu­ni­ties cut off by flood­wa­ters. Res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions are now un­der­way, with re­gion­al part­ners mo­bil­is­ing to as­sist.

Con­tain­ers of re­lief items be­ing or­gan­ised

In T&T, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der con­firmed that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had in­struct­ed of­fi­cials to ex­tend im­me­di­ate sup­port to Ja­maica.

“The Prime Min­is­ter says what­ev­er our Caribbean neigh­bours need and we can pro­vide, we will pro­vide it. Af­ter meet­ing with CEDE­MA (Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency), we will know if to de­ploy hu­man re­sources to as­sist,” he said.

Alexan­der told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that a ship­ment of re­lief items is ex­pect­ed to be dis­patched to­day (Thurs­day).

“We have al­ready start­ed load­ing con­tain­ers and one might leave as ear­ly as to­mor­row (to­day) for Ja­maica in a bid to ease the bur­dens placed on them by this nat­ur­al dis­as­ter. It will be the first in many.”

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers added that the Gov­ern­ment is re­view­ing a list of pri­or­i­ty re­lief items pro­vid­ed by Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that as­sis­tance meets the most ur­gent needs.

“I’ve been in con­stant con­tact with my coun­ter­part, the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Ms Cami­la John­son. The Prime Min­is­ter has been in con­stant con­tact with the Prime Min­is­ter of Ja­maica, the Most Ho­n­ourable Dr An­drew Hol­ness. And that is where our fo­cus is on right now in­ter­nal­ly with­in Cari­com.”