BLACK RIVER, Jamaica (AP) — The road from Jamaica’s capital to the seaside town of Black River was known for its lush bamboo forest that formed a natural tunnel and glowed green in the bright sun.
But its famous bamboo poles were strewn and chopped across the road by Hurricane Melissa on Thursday, forcing Jamaican soldiers to chop them with machetes to partially reopen the main road to the Black River, which the government described as “ground zero” for the storm.
Melissa washed ashore west of the town on Tuesday, leaving up to 90% of structures along the Black River without roofs as power lines snapped and concrete structures overturned.
One of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall, Melissa was blamed for killing at least 19 people in Jamaica and 31 in nearby Haiti.
In the ruins of the Black River, people scrambled to find help.
“People are hungry,” Monique Powell said as she watched her and a group of residents from Greenfield, one of the many hurricane-ravaged communities on the edge of the Black River, stock up on groceries and household items.
Helicopters hovered over isolated communities, dropping food as crews scrambled to reopen roads.
“You are not forgotten,” said Energy and Transport Minister Daryl Vaz.
More than 60% of Jamaica remains without power and almost half of its water systems are offline.
An influx of storm-weary people desperate for help descended on food establishments in the Black River to donate their goods. Many items were soaked and damaged as the strong winds of the Category 5 storm ripped through buildings and sent 15-foot (5-meter) sea waves crashing into the aging structures.
What was left was a foul-smelling, slimy mixture of mud, sand and seawater, covering the wrecked cars and wreckage of buildings that littered the city’s narrow streets.
“It’s all gone,” Michelle Barnes said as she and her 13-year-old daughter handled the handouts.
Through the muddy and narrow streets of the historic seaside town, choked with debris, men, women and children moved swiftly with many bags, some containing boxes or any container filled with relief supplies and balanced on their heads.
Meanwhile, teenage boys and men carried bag after bag of supplies on motorcycles and bicycles under the sweltering afternoon sun.
“My roof is gone and even my windows are gone,” said Sadique Blair, trying to hide from the relentless sun.
A flattened historic port
Named after one of Jamaica’s longest rivers, Black River is one of the island’s oldest towns and the first to have electricity, according to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust.
The Black River in the 20th century. in the late 1970s, the southern St. Elizabeth parish capital, and until the 20th century. was a busy seaport in the 19th century. Over the years, nearby towns such as Santa Cruz and Junction gradually replaced the Black River as the center of commerce in Jamaica’s breadbasket region.
Some wondered if the storm was an opportunity for the Black River to rebuild and regain its former glory as a place of trade and commerce that had faded with age.
With tears in her eyes, Marcia Green looked at the ruins of what was once her hair salon.
“Everything was destroyed,” she said. “I had just bought new fixtures and equipment as I was about to move to a new location to relaunch my business. But there was nothing left.”
It’s a double dose of disaster for many residents of the southwest parish.
in 2024 in July the outer bands of Hurricane Beryl hit the southern coast of Jamaica. Coastal communities in southern Clarendon, Manchester and St. Elizabeth parishes, and many were still picking up the pieces when Hurricane Melissa hit.
Path of Death
According to police, some of the 19 people who died in Jamaica in the latest storm were St. Elizabeth parish.
In nearby Haiti, officials said at least 31 people were killed and 21 others were missing, mostly in the country’s southern region. More than 15,800 people also remained in shelters.
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 another 80 destroyed.
No deaths were reported in Cuba, where civil defense evacuated more than 735,000 people in the eastern part of the island before the storm made landfall early Wednesday.
Cuban officials reported the loss of roofs, power lines and fiber-optic telecommunications cables, as well as cut off roads, isolating communities and heavy losses in banana, cassava and coffee plantations.
Many communities were still without electricity, internet and telephone connections.
Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 295 km/h. This set records for the strength of Atlantic hurricanes making landfall in both wind speed and barometric pressure.