Jamaicans take stock after Hurricane Melissa causes damage, flooding and power cuts

Jamaicans are taking stock after Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm in modern history to hit the island, left a trail of devastation and spread across the country.

Much of the country is isolated as there is no electricity or phone coverage, so information leaks.

Officials were able to confirm that the first deaths due to the hurricane occurred within 24 hours of landfall. The bodies of three men and a woman were washed away by floodwaters in St Elizabeth Parish, local government minister Desmond McKenzie said.

There, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said “there are images of destruction everywhere”.

“The damage is extensive, but we will devote all our energy to ensuring a strong recovery,” he said.

According to the latest media briefing, three-quarters of the country is still without electricity.

We experienced minimal damage to the road west of the capital Kingston; Some buildings were destroyed and trees were scattered on roads and gardens.

However, when we arrived in central Jamaica we began to see how hard the island had been hit. The town of Mandeville was, to put it better, destroyed. One gas station had lost its roof and most of its pumps.

The main road through the town is under rubble, everything is covered in leaves and pieces of construction material are scattered along the road.

The hurricane reached Cuba early Wednesday, causing flooding and damage. More than 25 people killed in HaitiThe local mayor said it mostly happens in Petit-Goave when a river bursts its banks.

At its peak, the hurricane sustained winds of 298 km/h (185 mph); This was stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed 1,392 people. It has since strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane.

As wind and rain intensified overnight, a local Jamaican official said the destruction resembled an “apocalyptic movie scene”.

Many parts of the west coast of Jamaica are under water; Houses were destroyed by strong winds after the hurricane ripped through the island with devastating force.

People shared clips of roads turning into rivers, landslides on hills, roofs ripped off buildings and palm trees thrown like toothpicks.

In the southwest coast town of Black River, police officer Warrell Nicholson was sheltering in the damaged police station with some residents. “It was devastating,” he told the AFP news agency.

Further up the coast, Andrew Houston Moncure was staying at 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 had fortified with pillows and blankets.

“It was the scariest experience I’ve ever had, especially with my son. The pressure is so low you have trouble breathing and it feels like a freight train is running over you,” she told AFP.

Kingston-based journalist Kimone Francis of The Jamaica Gleaner said floodwaters were rising to the roofs of two-storey houses in Jamaica’s central neighbourhoods.

Vegetable farmer Verna Genus, 73, was sheltering from the storm in her four-bedroom home in the village of St Elizabeth, Carlisle, with her sons and baby grandson when the cyclone ripped off the zinc roof of her home.

“She was crying on the phone,” said her sister June, who lives in the UK. “You’re huddled inside and then you look up and the roof is gone. I’ve never heard her like that; she was wailing, ‘we’re all done’.”

He anxiously waits for communication networks to be re-established so he can talk to his sister.

Known as Jamaica’s breadbasket, St Elizabeth produces most of the island’s products. Many farmers will struggle to recover financially as crops are flooded and fields destroyed.

Jamaica’s prime minister told the BBC that in some cases “there was complete devastation” and one town called Black River was “completely destroyed”.

Montego Bay on the north coast, the heart of Jamaica’s tourism industry and home to its main airport, will also take time to get back on its feet.

Mayor Richard Vernon said that the city of Montego was divided in two due to flood waters. He told BBC Breakfast: “When the wind died down it started to rain very heavily, causing major flooding throughout the city. One side of the city is now cut off from the other as the roads are flooded.”

His immediate concern, he added, was simple: “Check if everyone is alive.”

The storm shook people in rural Jamaica. Tamisha Lee, president of the Jamaica Rural Women Producers Network, said: “Right now I’m seeing heavy rain, high winds, lots of things flying everywhere and trees uprooted. There’s no electricity. I feel anxious and nervous. The damage will be huge.”

Hurricane Melissa intensified at a rarely seen pace, meteorologists said, and its rapid strengthening was driven by abnormally warm Caribbean waters, part of a broader trend linked to climate change.

The storm had reached Category 5 intensity when it hit Jamaica; The wind was strong enough to tear the roofs of concrete houses, uproot trees and break power poles.

Health officials even issued a crocodile alert, warning that floodwaters could drive the reptiles into residential areas.

The storm brought terror and uncertainty for thousands of tourists caught on the island.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” said Pia Chevallier of Cambridge, who traveled to Jamaica with her 15-year-old son on Saturday.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live from her dark hotel room, she said: “The glass in the windows and terrace doors was shaking. Even though they were closed, the doors sounded like they were being slammed. It was horrible.”

He added: “There’s debris everywhere; palm trees, coconuts, branches, everywhere. Big palm trees are up there with all their roots. The winds are so strong.”

Wayne Gibson, a British tourist from Kent who was holidaying in Ocho Rios on the north coast with his wife and two teenage daughters, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program they were sheltering in a shared lounge.

Kyle Holmes, from Bolton, who was visiting Lucea in the north-west, described the hotel as a “disaster zone” and said he had no idea when they would be able to return home.

Jamaica has a catastrophe bond (a sort of insurance for the country) that will get people back on their feet, but the problem is what is done in the meantime.

Additional reporting by Gabriela Pomeroy