Source: USA Today
Parts of the Caribbean are conducting search and rescue operations and surveying the extensive destruction Hurricane Melissa brought to the region, leaving dozens of people dead.
Melissa tore through the Caribbean as one of the most powerful storms in recorded history and made landfall in Jamaica on October 28 as a deadly Category 5 hurricane. By October 30, the storm had further weakened as it moved over the southeastern Bahamas and made its way toward Bermuda, about 500 miles off the US East Coast.
The hardest-hit areas include Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti, where damaging winds and severe flooding from storm surge and days of rainfall destroyed homes and tore down utility poles.
Although rescue and recovery operations are underway, they’re hampered by widespread power outages, communications failures and blocked roads. The death toll is growing — with more than 30 deaths attributed to the storm in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic — as authorities continued to verify reports of deaths.
“There are entire communities that seem to be marooned and also areas that have been flattened,” said Jamaican Minister of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information Dana Dixon. “We are trying to get to the areas that have been marooned. We will get there… We are going to get to every single Jamaican and give them support.”
“The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened, but we remain resilient,” Dixon said.
Jamaican officials are using helicopters to deliver relief supplies and transfer patients to other hospitals, Dixon and others said during a news conference. In some locations, helicopters have been unable to find clear spots to land, she said. She also described grueling work being done in some locations to clear roads to allow access for emergency vehicles, such as crews using machetes to cut their way through bamboo plants.
Officials also described great anxiety and uncertainty among island residents who have been unable to contact family members in some of the hardest-hit and flooded areas. Some airports were reopened on October 30 for relief flights.
The devastation caused by Melissa drew an outpouring of support from across the world, with some countries pledging support in the form of cash, food aid, and rescue teams.
