Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba recover after Hurricane Melissa: NPR

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba — The roar of heavy machinery, the whine of chainsaws and the slashes of machetes echoed through northern Caribbean communities Thursday as they retreated from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and assessed the damage left behind.

In Jamaica, officials and residents have begun clearing roads to reach dozens of isolated communities in the island’s southeast that were directly hit by one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record.

Stunned residents wandered around, some looking at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings scattered around them.

“I don’t have a house now,” said Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in southern St. Elizabeth Parish, as he held his bicycle, the only valuable possession left after the storm.

Emergency relief flights began landing at Jamaica’s main international airport, which reopened Wednesday evening, as crews distributed water, medicine and other basic supplies. Helicopters dropped food as they flew over communities where the storm flattened homes, destroyed roads and destroyed bridges, leaving them without assistance.

Residents cross a flooded street following Hurricane Melissa in Petit-Goave, Haiti, on Thursday.

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Odelyn Joseph/AP

“The whole of Jamaica is truly broken because of what happened,” said Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon.

Police said at least 14 people had died in Jamaica and that they expected the death toll to continue to rise. In one isolated community, residents begged authorities to remove a victim’s body tangled in a tree.

More than 13,000 people are still crowded into shelters, with 72% of the island without power and only 35% of cell phone sites operational, officials said. People clung to cash as they formed long queues outside the few gas stations and supermarkets open in the affected areas.

“We understand your frustration, we understand your anxiety, but we ask for your patience,” said Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s minister of telecommunications and energy.

Water trucks have been mobilized to serve many of Jamaica’s rural communities that are not connected to the government’s utility system, Water Minister Matthew Samuda said.

Slow recovery in Cuba

In Cuba, heavy equipment began clearing blocked roads and highways and the military helped rescue people trapped in isolated communities and threatened by landslides.

No deaths were reported after Civil Defense evacuated more than 735,000 people in eastern Cuba ahead of the storm. Residents were slowly starting to return home Thursday.

The town of El Cobre, in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, was one of the hardest hit. Home to some 7,000 people, it is also the site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint deeply revered by Catholics and practitioners of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion.

“We had a very bad experience. So much wind, so much wind. The zinc roofs were torn off. Some houses completely collapsed. It was a disaster,” said Odalys Ojeda, a 61-year-old retiree, looking up at the sky from her living room where the roof and other parts of the house were torn off.

The church in Lacovia Tombstone, Jamaica, was damaged Wednesday following Hurricane Melissa.

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Matias Delacroix/AP

Even the basilica was not spared.

“Here at the sanctuary, the carpentry, the stained glass windows and even the masonry suffered significant damage,” said Father Rogelio Dean Puerta.

A televised Civil Defense meeting chaired by President Miguel Díaz-Canel did not provide an official estimate of the damage. However, officials in the affected provinces – Santiago, Granma, Holguín, Guantánamo and Las Tunas – reported losses of roofs, power lines and fiber optic telecommunications cables, as well as cut roads, isolating communities and heavy losses of banana, cassava and coffee plantations.

Many communities were still without electricity, internet and telephone service due to downed transformers and power lines.

In an unusual statement on Thursday, the US State Department said the United States was “ready to assist the Cuban people.” A press release said the United States “stands ready to provide immediate humanitarian assistance, directly and through local partners who can deliver it more effectively to those in need.”

The statement did not specify how cooperation would be coordinated or whether contacts had been made with the Cuban government, with which it has a bitter conflict that includes six decades of economic and financial sanctions.

Deaths and floods in Haiti

Melissa also triggered catastrophic flooding in Haiti, where at least 30 people were reported killed and 20 others missing, mainly in the southern region of the country. Some 15,000 people also remained in shelters.

“It’s a sad moment for the country,” said Laurent Saint-Cyr, president of Haiti’s presidential transition council.

He said officials expected the death toll to rise and noted that the government was mobilizing resources to search for people and provide emergency relief.

Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Hurricane Melissa killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in Petit-Goâve, where more than 160 homes were damaged and 80 others destroyed.

Steven Guadard said Melissa killed his entire family in Petit-Goâve, including four children aged from 1 month to 8 years old.

Michelet Dégange, who has lived in Petit-Goâve for three years, said Melissa left him homeless.

A man searches for cell signal from the roof of his home that was flooded and damaged by Hurricane Melissa in Black River, Jamaica, on Thursday.

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Matias Delacroix/AP

“There is no place to lay the body; we are hungry,” he said. “The authorities don’t think about us. I haven’t closed my eyes since the bad weather started.”

When Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with maximum winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), it tied strength records for landfalling Atlantic hurricanes, both in terms of wind speed and barometric pressure.

Melissa was a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph (165 kph) Thursday evening and was moving northeast at 32 mph (51 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was centered about 260 miles west-southwest of Bermuda.

Melissa brushed the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday, forcing authorities to evacuate 1,400 people ahead of the storm.

Melissa was forecast to pass near or west of Bermuda on Thursday evening and may strengthen further before weakening on Friday.

Bermuda International Airport was due to close on Thursday evening and reopen at noon on Friday, while all schools in the wealthy British territory were closed.