SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba (AP) — Hurricane Melissa left dozens dead and widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape Wednesday.
A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica’s St. Elizabeth parish, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings. Wind ripped off part of the roof at a high school that serves as a public shelter.
“I never see anything like this before in all my years living here,” resident Jennifer Small said.
Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a catastrophic Category 5 storm with top winds of 185 mph, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating effects.
At least 23 people have died across Haiti and 13 are missing, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said in a statement, revising the death toll downward. Twenty of those reported dead and 10 of the missing are from the southern coastal town of Petit-Goâve, where flooding collapsed dozens of homes. The number of dead and missing in Haiti often fluctuate in the early days after major natural disasters.
In Cuba, officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off buildings Wednesday, with the heaviest destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest. Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters.
“That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain.
Jamaica rushes to assess the damage
In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters Wednesday and more streamed in throughout the day after the storm ripped roofs off their homes and left them temporarily homeless. Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s education minister, said that 77% of the island was without power.
Outages complicated assessing the damage because of “a total communication blackout” in areas, Richard Thompson, acting director general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, told the Nationwide News Network radio station.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a statement that teams are working to rescue people and bring relief where it’s needed the most.
“Recovery will take time, but the government is fully mobilized,” he said. “Relief supplies are being prepared, and we are doing everything possible to restore normalcy quickly.”
Officials in Black River, Jamaica, a coastal town of approximately 5,000 people in the southwestern part of the island, pleaded for aid at a news conference Wednesday.
“Catastrophic is a mild term based on what we are observing,” Mayor Richard Solomon said.
Solomon said the local rescue infrastructure had been demolished by the storm. The hospital, police units and emergency services were inundated by floods and unable to conduct emergency operations. The storm also destroyed the facility where relief supplies were being stored.
In southwest Jamaica, David Muschette, 84, sat among the rubble of his roofless house. He said he lost everything as he pointed to his wet clothes and furniture strewn across the grass while part of his roof partially blocked the road.
“I need help,” he begged.
