03/11/2025
Part2 of 2
Melissa’s impact could be seen from the outskirts of Mandeville…
A crew of us went West to distribute care packages to folks who were cut off in their areas. Let me recap as best I can:
Exiting Mandeville was where the start of the reach of the hurricane was noticeable.
Downed power lines and poles, trees broken twisted, some bark stripped bare by the winds force, water in places that are usually bone dry now small lakes, land slippage, roads destroyed by the flood water… and the further we traversed the worse it got. Entire structures reduced to a pile of debris only identified as once being a home or business by a door or window seen amongst the pile. If it had a roof made of anything but concrete, that roof was GONE, not laying around within sight of the building… GONE!!!
I can only compare what I saw to images of war-torn places on CNN that were subjected to long range artillery fire, the place is a mess… MiddleQuarters by the shrimp village, GONE, Border by the Fish and Bammy spot on the riverside, GONE, Bluefields, non existent, Whitehouse, unrecognizable, Savanna-la-mar, not even chain link fences were spared… It is going to take a lot of hands on deck to even begin to get those parishes back to any semblance of normality… the clearing of the roads alone is going to be a tumultuous task and after that to bring back power and telecom service is going to be a while… I have seen my fair share of destruction from hurricanes but this one is unbelievable.
However I have seen firsthand that there are people who are helping in whatever way they can and just seeing that makes me know that Jamaica 🇯🇲 and her people are not lost. Melissa came and did her worst, now it’s time to assess, regroup, pick up the pieces and rebuild… as a Nation, Out of many One People!