In a Jamaican Town, Melissa leaves floods ‘infested’ by dead livestock

NEW RIVER, Jamaica — Isaiah Beck, a carpenter, was trying to reach his house in the New River community in St. Elizabeth parish, on Jamaica’s storm-battered southwestern coast. His home was on the other side of a large pool of chest-high water.

But he thought better of it when he saw the dead livestock.

“There is a dead cow and hog; the water is starting to get infested,” he said. “The water is coming from all sides.”

Three days after Hurricane Melissa roared across Jamaica, many people in communities stricken by the powerful storm find themselves trapped by floodwaters that keep rising, apparently because of a drainage system that had become blocked.

The hurricane, one of the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, ripped through several island nations, leaving behind death and widespread destruction.

At least 19 people were killed in Jamaica, and at least 30, including children, in Haiti, officials said. Jamaican officials said they expected the death toll to climb as soon as Friday as authorities reached and searched through the worst-hit areas.

Jamaican authorities would be “all-hands on deck” to help the country recover from “unimaginable” devastation, the country’s information minister, Dana Morris Dixon, said at a news conference. She added that “credible” reports had trickled in of four more bodies found in Westmoreland parish and another in St. Elizabeth.

In New River, where there was still no power Friday, residents said they thought the worst of the storm was behind them — until the water started coming. Water began seeping into people’s homes two days ago and started rising considerably again Friday, residents said.

At the height of the storm, one person said, the wind kept peeling the roofs off homes, forcing people to run from house to house in search of safe shelter.

Before the storm, Beck said, he had been boarding up windows at a local infirmary, and ended up riding out the storm there.

When he was able to get back to his home, he said, the roof had been torn off.

“My house is rubbish,” Beck said.

Reginald Campbell, 64, dragged cushions and mattresses into the sunlight from his flooded house.

“I am trying to get some sun on it because it is starting to stink,” he shouted from his porch, which was surrounded by water.

Campbell said the blocked drainage system was causing the water to keep rising.

“We are anxious,” he said.

Delano Williams, an official with Jamaica’s water agency, told reporters Friday that there was a “total shutdown” of infrastructure in several affected parishes. The agency’s facilities in the parish of St. Elizabeth, where New River is, saw its systems affected by 90%, he added.

Elsewhere in the town, a man with a chain saw tackled a palm tree that had fallen across his front yard. He climbed another tree that had power lines draped across it, trying to cut it down.

About 2,000 feet down the road, drone footage of the area showed the dead cow and pig that had given Beck pause. People in houses with roofs torn off peeked through windows in homes surrounded by water. Those with a bit of exposed land had scattered their belongings outside to try to dry them in the sun.

Two little boys, one barefoot and both shirtless, walked down the street carrying their belongings in plastic bags on their heads. They reached a large pool of water and debated going further.

They waded through the knee-high water.

Weston Brown, who works as an embalmer for funeral homes, drove to check the conditions at the Bailey Parlor funeral home, which had part of its roof torn off.

Brown was certain that the death toll would rise, as authorities found more and more bodies deteriorating inside homes.

“We are going to have more people dying,” he said. “People are going to start dying from hunger.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.