Traffic is congested as traffic lights sit amidst piles of rubble. The once mighty trees and crumbling power lines in the streets turned into rivers. According to satellite images, entire communities were swept away by winds and floods.
These are just some of the scenes of devastation that Jamaica woke up to on Thursday morning, 48 hours after Hurricane Melissa devastated the island nation as the most powerful storm in its history and one of the most powerful ever recorded. The United Nations said the damage was at a level “never before seen.”
Cuba is also counting the cost after the storm leveled homes and blocked roads, after some 735,000 people spent the night in shelters, with the full extent of the damage still unclear.
The monster cyclone had winds of up to 185 mph and killed at least seven people in Jamaica and 27 more across the Caribbean this week.
The storm was heading toward the Bahamas and Bermuda on Thursday morning and there was a hurricane warning for both nations to shelter in place. The storm has greatly weakened to 100 mph, making it a still dangerous Category 2 storm capable of inflicting significant damage.
But for Jamaica and Cuba the task of providing aid to affected communities and reconstruction begins now.
The urgent humanitarian challenge has prompted immediate responses from countries around the world and NGOs alike after more than 400,000 people in Jamaica were directly affected.
The US State Department said it would send a Disaster Regional Response Team (DART) to the region, as well as US-based urban search and rescue teams.
However, a former US official and two current officials told NBC News on Wednesday. that this response was delayed due to the government shutdown and the elimination of USAID. Previously, the DART team would have already been on the ground in Jamaica, sources said, but missed the opportunity to travel before the storm.
The American non-profit Project Dynamo is sending more than 3,000 pounds of essential aid to Jamaica on several planes, including children for water purification and medical supplies, which it calls Operation Cool Runnings, in reference to the 1993 cult film.
The UN World Food Program plans to deliver 2,000 boxes of emergency food from Barbados as soon as flights to Jamaica resume, enough to feed about 6,000 people a week. “This is a terrible tragedy and there is a real sense of urgency here on the ground,” Brian Bogart, WFP’s Caribbean director, told the UN news service.
The American Red Cross said it was operating ambulances throughout Jamaica on Thursday responding to emergencies at shelters and taking people to hospitals.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness was in the hardest-hit community of St James on Wednesday and posted videos of houses flooded with water and mud.
“Despite hardship, the Jamaican spirit shines as a strong reminder that we are a resilient nation with the ability to triumph over adversity,” he said.
UN Resident Coordinator Dennis Zulu said at a news conference that Jamaica’s recovery would take at least months.
“I don’t think there’s a single soul on this island that hasn’t been affected by Hurricane Melissa,” he said.
Jamaica is accepting donations for its official Hurricane Melissa relief fund.
Larissa Gao, Carolina Radnofsky and Colin Sheeley contributed.
