‘We’re absolutely terrified,’ eyewitnesses say in Jamaica

Hurricane Melissa, the world’s strongest storm, has reached southwestern Jamaica.

The BBC spoke to locals and tourists before their arrival, describing hectic preparations, empty shops due to stockpiling and a general sense of fear on the Caribbean island.

“The doors are blowing away from the wind,” said Kabien, a mother of three children.

“I’m trying to use my own manpower to stop the wind blowing at the door,” he added, panic evident in his voice.

Kabien, who runs a beauty salon in Santa Cruz where residents were warned to shelter in place, said she couldn’t get there in time because it was too far away and “it’s too dangerous to leave the house anymore.”

“Water is coming from the roof of the house,” he said. “I am not ok.”

She added that her three young children were “very, very scared.”

Damion, a computer scientist living in Kingston, told the BBC he woke up on Tuesday to winds outside “too strong to stand up”.

At his mother’s home in Manchester Parish, an hour away, “the wind was so strong it blew part of the roof off,” he said.

Simon Johnson, 33, who lives in Harbor View in Kingston with his wife and two sisters, said the family had experienced hurricanes before, but “never one of this magnitude.”

He told the BBC he was “feeling worried” as he lives just 200 meters from the harbour.

“We put plywood in front of the house to protect from rain and wind,” he said. “We put sandbags around the doors and closed the shutters to protect the windows.”

He added that they stocked food for a week, but most of the supermarkets were empty and he could not find bread in the neighborhood.

In Jamaica, people waited and prepared for days for Hurricane Melissa to slowly approach the coast.

The strongest storm on record for the island nation – and the strongest globally this year – has warned of “catastrophic and life-threatening” conditions when it makes landfall in Jamaica, with torrential rainfall, deadly flash floods and landslides.

Three “storm-related deaths” on the Caribbean island, along with four deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, were attributed to the storm as people prepared it by chopping down trees.

The storm is expected to be particularly devastating off the coast of Kingston, where much of the country’s critical infrastructure is located, including the international airport and power plants.

Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued by the government for at least seven areas in the Southeast classified as high risk; Airports and schools across the country were closed.

Power outages have rippled across Jamaica, with more than 200,000 people currently without power, according to the government.

Thousands of residents have sought refuge in government shelters, but many are thought to be reluctant to leave their homes.

Tourists stated that they “remained in uncertainty” because the country’s two international airports were closed, flights were canceled and information from airlines was limited.

Rebecca Chapman, who went to Jamaica for her 25th wedding anniversary, said she arrived on Thursday evening when storm preparations were starting.

She stays with her husband and three teenage sons in Lucea, a half-hour from coastal Montego Bay.

“There’s a strange roar that sounds like it’s coming from the sea,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Tuesday before the storm hit. “It’s really weird, like something is coming. Everything went quiet because the birds were all gone. It’s like a ghost town.”

“Trees are breaking, the wind is hitting our rooms, and it’s raining non-stop,” Keira Witcomb said.

Ms Witcomb, who came to Jamaica from England for her mother’s wedding, said they were “absolutely horrified” and “fearful for our lives”.

Alex Baskeyfield, from West Yorkshire, is currently staying with his wife and 13-year-old daughter in the town of Negril on the west coast of the island. He tried to leave Jamaica in the days before the storm hit, but all outgoing flights were fully booked.

He described the atmosphere as “strange and unusual” due to the “extreme preparations” carried out at his hotel; windows were boarded up, everything was tied up, and ceiling fans and televisions were removed.

“There’s an army of people who have been dismantling everything they can for the last 48 hours,” he added.

“You get the feeling that something incredibly serious is about to happen.”

Foreign Office advises Britons in Jamaica to follow advice from local authorities“especially in the event of any evacuation order”.