RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa made land­fall as a Cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane near New Hope, tear­ing through Ja­maica with winds of 185 miles per hour, the coun­try was plunged in­to dark­ness yes­ter­day. Pow­er lines col­lapsed, cars were swept away, roads were cut off, roofs were torn off, and homes were flat­tened. Across west­ern and south­ern parish­es—West­more­land, St Eliz­a­beth, Claren­don, and Man­ches­ter—fam­i­lies clung to what was left of their homes, while in the cap­i­tal, Kingston, stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) prayed.

Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness lat­er de­clared the is­land a dis­as­ter area.

Third-year med­ical stu­dent Ray Charles told Guardian Me­dia the hur­ri­cane was one he would nev­er for­get.

“It’s a lot of strong winds,” he said over the sound of rush­ing rain. “Wa­ter is seep­ing through the win­dows, rain is blow­ing in­to the rooms, and flood­ing them. It’s scary, but we’re try­ing our best to stay calm and keep in high spir­its. My friends and I are play­ing games, just wait­ing for the storm to pass.”

Charles said he was wor­ried about those out­side Kingston. “Peo­ple in the west­ern side of Ja­maica, in St Eliz­a­beth and all of those ar­eas—they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age. It’s ter­ri­ble for them,” he said. “Ja­maica will need all help—all hands on deck—to re­build. Whether it’s through do­na­tions or send­ing sup­plies, the coun­try­side peo­ple will need as much help as pos­si­ble.”

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent of the UWI Mona Trinidad and To­ba­go Stu­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Bre­an­na Bethel, said about 300 stu­dents re­mained on cam­pus dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa. “It’s re­al­ly windy and breezy in Kingston,” she said. “Some halls don’t have Wi-Fi be­cause the gen­er­a­tors were turned off, and every­one was anx­ious this morn­ing. We didn’t know how it was go­ing to go.”

She said stu­dents passed the time by play­ing cards and watch­ing movies, try­ing to ig­nore the wind’s roar. “We’re just try­ing to keep calm and pray. We’re thank­ful Kingston didn’t get hit as bad­ly as the oth­er parish­es. The sup­port and prayers from every­one mean a lot,” she added.

In New Kingston, Dr Kar­ri­an Hep­burn-Mal­colm, for­mer man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Guardian Me­dia, said the city had been spared the worst.

“It’s been con­sis­tent­ly rainy and very gusty,” she said. “From where I’m look­ing, I don’t see any roofs fly­ing off or flood­ing. But based on videos and peo­ple I’ve spo­ken to, the south­west­ern parish­es—St Eliz­a­beth, Black Riv­er, St Ann—are tak­ing a beat­ing. Roofs are gone, peo­ple are trapped, light poles are down.”

At the time, Hep­burn-Mal­colm said it was risky for res­i­dents to help one an­oth­er now as the hur­ri­cane was still hit­ting the is­land. “Some peo­ple can’t even leave their homes to help their neigh­bours,” she said. “They’ve lost com­mu­ni­ca­tion, there’s no elec­tric­i­ty, no in­ter­net. Any as­sis­tance that can be ren­dered over the next few weeks would be glad­ly ac­cept­ed.”

Re­flect­ing on Ja­maica’s pre­pared­ness, she said au­thor­i­ties did what they could. “It’s very dif­fi­cult to pre­pare for a Cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane, no mat­ter where you are,” she not­ed. “Shel­ters were opened, and evac­u­a­tion was manda­to­ry in some ar­eas. But some peo­ple didn’t take up the of­fer to re­lo­cate, and now they’re suf­fer­ing the con­se­quences.”

She urged Ja­maicans and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to help. “To my fel­low Ja­maicans—hang in there. Safe­ty first, life first,” she said. “To Trinidad and the rest of the re­gion, reach out to your loved ones and help where you can. But make sure you’re do­nat­ing through of­fi­cial chan­nels.” She al­so said any help from the Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand would be wel­comed.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to the Ja­maica Glean­er’s Se­nior Staff Re­porter, Jo­van John­son, for an up­date on the im­pacts. 

“At least four hos­pi­tals were im­pact­ed in the cen­tral and west­ern re­gions; the roof of one of the ad­min­is­tra­tive blocks of the Black Riv­er Hos­pi­tal was lost. Sev­en­ty-five pa­tients were be­ing housed in the high­er floors of that fa­cil­i­ty,” said John­son. 

John­son con­tin­ued, “It wouldn’t be sur­pris­ing if more than 50 per cent of cus­tomers in the cen­tral west­ern ar­eas are with­out pow­er. In­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty is al­so down. Sev­er­al schools have re­port­ed lost roofs or dam­aged build­ings. The fire res­cue had to con­duct a res­cue op­er­a­tion in Man­dev­ille where some hous­es were sub­merged.” 

Ini­tial­ly, Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties were con­cerned about the low util­i­sa­tion of the shel­ters, es­pe­cial­ly in the flood-prone ar­eas, but ac­tiv­i­ty in­creased once the storm be­gan rolling in. 

John­son al­so in­di­cat­ed that there have not been any deaths di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to im­pacts from Melis­sa. How­ev­er, three deaths were re­port­ed in con­nec­tion with prepa­ra­tions for the hur­ri­cane. 

Ja­maica’s Trans­port Min­is­ter Darl Vaz has in­di­cat­ed that as­sess­ments are on­go­ing at the Nor­man Man­ley In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Kingston, and that it may be re­opened as ear­ly as Thurs­day for re­lief sup­plies. 

Lec­tur­er at UWI Mona cam­pus, Amit Neil Ramkissoon, who ex­pe­ri­enced a hur­ri­cane for the first time, called for as­sis­tance for Ja­maica in the com­ing days.

“We have a What­sApp group with mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, and we are al­so mak­ing sure that every­one is okay and get­ting the lat­est up­dates. Many peo­ple will need help in the com­ing days,” he said.

The Ja­maica Na­tion­al Group ac­ti­vat­ed its ISup­port­Ja­maica Fund to aid re­cov­ery ef­forts, which are ex­pect­ed to ri­val those af­ter Hur­ri­canes Char­lie (1951) and Gilbert (1988). The fund, man­aged by the JN Foun­da­tion, en­ables do­na­tions from with­in Ja­maica and abroad through jn­foun­da­tion.com/hur­ri­cane-melis­sa-re­lief/.

Paulette Simp­son, ex­ec­u­tive for Cor­po­rate Af­fairs and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy at JN Group in the Unit­ed King­dom, said co­or­di­na­tion of re­lief was al­ready un­der­way. “We are ap­peal­ing to Ja­maicans, home and abroad, to do­nate so that first re­spon­ders can pro­vide com­fort for those in need as soon as it is safe.”

To do­nate, go to link: https://jn­foun­da­tion.com/hur­ri­cane-melis­sa-re­lief

Lo­cal­ly, the Joint Cham­bers —TT Cham­ber, Am­ChamTT, En­er­gy Cham­ber, and the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­er’s As­so­ci­a­tion—have es­tab­lished a re­lief ac­count that can ac­cept do­na­tions, and which can be used to dis­burse funds as need­ed to re­spect­ed Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs).

For more in­for­ma­tion, con­tact: Brand De­vel­op­ment and Pub­lic Af­fairs Unit, TT Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce; email: com­mu­ni­ca­tions@cham­ber.org.tt or call 637 6966 ext. 1245.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said her Gov­ern­ment reached out to Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter and was mo­bil­is­ing to pro­vide im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, which was fore­cast to be one of the worst hur­ri­canes in the is­land’s his­to­ry.