Nick Davis,Mandeville and
Rachel Hagan
EPAJamaicans are taking stock after Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm to strike the island in modern history, barrelled across the country leaving behind a trail of ruin.
Without power or phone coverage, much of the country is isolated and so information is trickling through.
Authorities were only able to confirm the first deaths as a result of the hurricane over 24 hours after landfall. The bodies of three men and one woman were washed up by the flood waters in St Elizabeth Parish, local government minister Desmond McKenzie said.
There, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said “images of destruction are all around”.
“The damage is great, but we are going to devote all our energy to mount a strong recovery,” he said.
Three-quarters of the country are still without power, according to the latest media briefing.
On the road west out of the capital Kingston we saw minimal damage – some structures torn down, trees strewn across roads and gardens.
But once we arrived in central Jamaica we started to see how severely the island has been hit. The town of Mandeville has been, for want of a better word, flattened. A petrol station had lost its roof and most of its pumps.
The main road that runs through the town is littered in debris, foliage is stuck to everything and bits of building material were scattered along the road.
By early Wednesday the hurricane had made landfall in Cuba, causing flooding and damage. In Haiti more than 25 people were killed, most when a river burst its banks in Petit-Goave, the local mayor said.
At its peak, the hurricane sustained winds of 298 km/h (185 mph) – stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed 1,392 people. It has since weakened to a Category 3 hurricane.
As wind and rain lashed through the night, one local Jamaican official said the destruction resembled “the scene of an apocalypse movie”.
Many parts of Jamaica’s western side are under water, with homes destroyed by strong winds after the hurricane tore across the island with catastrophic force.
People have shared clips of roads that became rivers, mudslides on the hills, roofs being ripped from buildings and palm trees tossed like tooth picks.
In the town of Black River on the south-west coast, police officer Warrell Nicholson was sheltering in the damaged police station along with some residents. “It’s been devastating,” he told the AFP news agency.
Further up the coast, Andrew Houston Moncure was sheltering in the luxury hotel he owns, with his wife and 20-month-old son. At the height of the hurricane they barricaded themselves inside the shower, which they fortified with pillows and blankets.
“It was the most terrifying experience, especially with my son. The pressure is so low you struggle to breathe, and it just sounds like a freight train going over you,” he told AFP.
Across Jamaica’s central parishes, flood waters rose to the roofs of two-storey homes, Kingston-based journalist Kimone Francis of The Jamaica Gleaner said.
Verna Genus, a 73-year-old vegetable farmer, was sheltering from the storm with her sons and baby grandchild at her four-bedroom home in the village of Carlisle, St Elizabeth, when the hurricane ripped the zinc roof off her house.
“She was crying on the phone,” her UK-based sister June said, adding: “You are huddled up inside and then you look up then the roof is gone. I have never heard her like that – she was wailing ‘we are all finished’.”
She is anxiously waiting for communications networks to be restored so she can talk to her sister.
St Elizabeth, known as Jamaica’s breadbasket, produces much of the island’s produce. With crops submerged and fields destroyed, many farmers will struggle to financially recover.
Jamaica’s prime minister told the BBC in some instances “there was total devastation” and that one town named Black River had been “totally destroyed”.
On the north coast, Montego Bay – the heart of Jamaica’s tourism industry and home to its main airport – will also take time to get back on its feet.
Montego city was split in two by flood waters, Mayor Richard Vernon said. He told BBC Breakfast: “Once the wind subsided, we started to get a lot of heavy rain and that has led to massive floods right across the city. One side of the city is now cut off from the other due to roads being inundated by flood water.”
His immediate concern, he added, was simple: “Check if everybody is alive.”
In rural Jamaica, the storm has left people shaken. Tamisha Lee, president of the Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers, said: “Right now, what I’m seeing is heavy rain, powerful wind, a lot of things flying all over the place, and trees uprooted. There is no electricity. I am feeling anxious and tense. The damage will be enormous.”
Meteorologists said Hurricane Melissa intensified at a speed rarely seen, its rapid strengthening fuelled by abnormally warm Caribbean waters – part of a broader trend linked to climate change.
By the time it struck Jamaica, the storm had reached Category 5 strength, with gusts fierce enough to tear roofs from concrete homes, uproot trees and snap power poles.
Health officials even issued a crocodile warning, cautioning that flood waters could drive the reptiles into residential areas.
For thousands of tourists caught on the island, the storm brought terror and uncertainty.
“I’ve never heard anything like it,” said Pia Chevallier from Cambridge, who travelled to Jamaica with her 15-year-old son on Saturday.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live from her darkened hotel room, she said: “The glass in the windows and patio doors was all vibrating. The doors sounded like they were slamming, even though they were closed. It was horrendous.”
She added: “There’s debris everywhere – palm trees, coconuts, branches, all over the place. The big palm trees with all the roots are up. That’s how strong the winds have been.”
On the north coast, Wayne Gibson, a British tourist from Kent holidaying in Ocho Rios with his wife and two teenage daughters, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that they were sheltering in a communal hall.
Kyle Holmes from Bolton, visiting Lucea in the north west, described the hotel as “a disaster zone” and said he had no idea when they will be able to get home.
Jamaica has a catastrophe bond – a type of insurance for the country – which will hopefully allow people to get back on their feet, but the issue is what’s done in the interim.
Additional reporting by Gabriela Pomeroy
