Hurricane Melissa left dozens of dead and widespread destruction in Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless houses, fallen lamp posts and waterlogged furniture dominated the landscape this Wednesday, 29.
In Jamaica, a landslide blocked the main roads in Santa Cruz, in the Santa Elizabeth region, where the streets turned into mud. Residents removed water from their homes while trying to save their belongings.
The winds ripped off part of the roof of a high school, which served as a public shelter. “In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen anything like this,” said resident Jennifer Small.
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Melissa, category 5, hit Jamaican soil on Tuesday, the 28th, as one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic, with maximum winds of 295 km/h, before losing strength and heading towards Cuba. Even countries outside the storm’s direct path felt its devastating effects.
The United Nations (UN) coordinator for several Caribbean countries, Dennis Zulu, said the devastation caused by the hurricane in Jamaica had reached “unprecedented levels”.
“From what we know so far, there has been immense and unprecedented destruction of infrastructure, property, roads, communications and energy networks,” he said. “There are people in shelters across the country and right now what we are seeing in preliminary assessments is a country devastated to an unprecedented level.”
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Impact
In Haiti, flooding caused by Melissa killed at least 25 people in the coastal city of Petit-Goâve, in the south of the country, Mayor Jean Bertrand Subrème said. He said dozens of houses collapsed when the La Digue River burst its banks and that people were still trapped under the rubble on Wednesday morning.
Only one employee from Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency was in the area as residents struggled to evacuate amid the raging flood waters.
In Cuba, authorities reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and torn off roofs on Wednesday, with the greatest destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest of the country. Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters.
“It was hell. The whole night was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon, in Santiago de Cuba, in the east of the country. The man was one of the few people who ventured out this Wednesday, covered by a plastic tarp in the intermittent rain.
In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were sheltering in shelters on Wednesday, and more arrived throughout the day after the storm tore roofs off their homes and left them temporarily homeless. Jamaica’s Education Minister, Dana Morris Dixon, said 77% of the island was without power.
Jamaica rushes damage assessment
Jamaican authorities have reported difficulties in assessing damage due to power outages, noting a “total communications blackout” in some areas, acting director-general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, Richard Thompson, told Nationwide News Network.
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“It won’t be easy, Jamaica,” said Jamaica Disaster Risk Management Council vice-president Desmond McKenzie.
At least one death was reported in the west of the island when a tree fell on a baby, Minister of State Abka Fitz-Henley told Nationwide News Network.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness plans to fly over the worst-affected areas, where crews were still trying to access sites and determine the extent of the damage, the country’s education minister said.
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Nearby, David Muschette sat among the rubble of his roofless home. He said he lost everything, pointing to his wet clothes and furniture scattered on the grass outside, while part of the roof partially blocked the street. “I need help,” he begged.
The government said it hopes to reopen all of Jamaica’s airports as early as this Thursday, March 30, to ensure the rapid distribution of emergency supplies.
The United States is sending rescue and response teams to assist with recovery efforts in the Caribbean, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week. He said government authorities are coordinating actions with leaders in Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
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Cuba weathers the storm
Residents of the province of Santiago de Cuba began removing rubble around the collapsed walls of their homes this Wednesday, after Hurricane Melissa hit the region hours earlier.
“Life is what matters,” said fisherman Alexis Ramos as he looked at his destroyed home and protected himself from the intermittent rain with a yellow raincoat. “Repairing this costs money, a lot of money.”
Meanwhile, local media showed images of the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Hospital with severe damage: glass scattered across the floor, waiting rooms in ruins and masonry walls collapsed.
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Parts of Granma province, especially the capital, Jiguaní, were underwater, said Governor Yanetsy Terry Gutiérrez. More than 40 centimeters of rain were recorded in the town of Charco Redondo, in Jiguaní.
The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s serious economic crisis, which has already seen prolonged blackouts, in addition to fuel and food shortages. “There will be a lot of work to do. We know there will be a lot of damage,” said Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in a televised address. He asked the population not to underestimate the power of Melissa.
On Wednesday afternoon, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h and was moving at 22 km/h, according to the US National Hurricane Center. The center of the hurricane was about 150 miles (245 kilometers) south of the central Bahamas.
National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said the storm began affecting the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday. “The storm is increasing in size,” he said, noting that tropical storm-force winds now extend nearly 200 miles from the center.
The forecast is that the center of Melissa will cross the southeast of the Bahamas this Wednesday, generating a tide of up to two meters in the region. Late Thursday, Melissa is expected to pass west of Bermuda.
Before reaching the coast, Melissa had already been responsible for three deaths in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic. *WITH INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES
