Gabriela Pomeroy
Getty ImagesResidents and holidaymakers have described their terror as Hurricane Melissa made landfall in south-western Jamaica, the strongest storm to hit the Caribbean nation in modern history.
Locals and tourists told the BBC how they hunkered down as the storm ripped roofs off buildings and cut power to about a third of the country’s 2.8 million population.
“The doors are being blown off by the wind,” said Kabien, a mother-of-three who runs a beauty salon in the town of Santa Cruz.
With panic in her voice, she said: “I am trying to use my own manpower to stop the wind blowing in the door.”
“There is water coming through the roof of the house,” she said. “I am not OK.”
Her three young children were “very, very scared”, she added.
Melissa made landfall on Tuesday afternoon in south-western Jamaica near the town of New Hope with wind speeds of 185 mph (295 km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Originally a category five storm, it was downgraded to category three after it made landfall and began sweeping across the island. Up to 30in (76cm) of rain was expected in some parts of Jamaica.
Officials said it would continue to decrease in intensity, but remain extremely dangerous, as it moves towards Cuba and then the Bahamas.
Kyle Holmes, from Bolton, who is visiting Jamaica with his wife and young daughters, aged 7, 10, and 12, for a family wedding, told the BBC of the devastation wreaked by the storm.
He said the hotel he was staying in – the Grand Palladium Resort, in the town of Lucea, half an hour from Montego Bay on the coast – looks like “a disaster zone”.
He said he barricaded the windows to the hotel room by placing all the furniture against them, and his family were safe after the “worst experience ever”.
Getty ImagesWinston Warren, who has been riding out the hurricane from inside his home in east Kingston, less than a kilometre from the ocean, told the BBC: “There are times you just wonder – are the waves going to come crashing into your house.
“We’ve seen a lot of roofs blown off.”
Emma, who is on a family holiday in Jamaica from Essex, England, said the windows of their Montego Bay hotel had been smashed by high winds.
“We moved to a safe room as the children were petrified,” she said. “The windows have been blown through and the staff are working furiously to make us safe.
“We have all just moved to another room in the building as the glass in the lobby is unsafe. We are all terrified.”
Damion, a computer scientist living in Kingston, told the BBC he had woken on Tuesday to winds “so strong you would not be able to stand up” outside.
Simon Johnson, 33, who lives in Harbour View in Kingston with his wife and two sisters, said the family had experienced hurricanes before – “but not one of this size”.
Living just 200m (650ft) from the harbour, he told the BBC he was “feeling anxious”.
They have stockpiled a week’s worth of food, he added, but many of the supermarkets were empty and he could not find any bread in the neighbourhood.
Getty Images‘The birds have all gone’
Officials warned people as the storm arrived to cover themselves with a mattress, move to an indoor room, and to wear a helmet if possible.
Jamaican health officials also warned that flooding may displace crocodiles from their natural dwellings.
Melissa is the strongest storm on record for the island nation – and the strongest globally this year.
The NHC warned of “catastrophic and life-threatening” conditions once it landed in Jamaica, with torrential rainfall, deadly flash flooding and landslides.
Three “storm-related deaths” on the Caribbean island have already been attributed to the storm, as well as four deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Tourists in Jamaica described being “stuck in limbo” with the country’s two international airports closed, flights cancelled and limited information from airlines.
Rebecca Chapman, who travelled to Jamaica for her 25th wedding anniversary, said she had arrived on Thursday evening just as storm preparations began.
She was staying in Lucea with her husband and their three teenage sons.
“The birds have all gone so it’s all gone really quiet. It’s like a ghost town,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme before the storm hit on Tuesday.
The Foreign Office has advised Britons in Jamaica to follow local authority advice, “especially in the event of any evacuation orders”.
Leave a Reply