- 3 months ago
Hurricane Melissa is current causing havoc in Cuba and is making its way to the Bahamas. The hurricane devastated the West parts of Jamaica causing lost of life and infrastructural damage. Senior Reporter and Producer Mark Bassant spoke with Head of News and Sports from the RJR GLEANER GROUP, Milton Walker to get the very latest of damage assessment, recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So Milton, we know that you all, the authorities have only just begun in the last couple of hours to get on the ground to assess the situation.
00:11We don't know how bad it is yet.
00:14We have seen some images, of course, aerial images of areas in West Jamaica, St. Elizabeth and so on.
00:20What can you tell us so far that you know about the destruction, about any loss of life?
00:27Okay, first let me start with loss of life.
00:29Five deaths have been recorded, four in St. Elizabeth, two were found in the Black River and two were in the Galleon Beach.
00:37There are three males and one female and a man, another man died in West Milan when his roof caved in on him.
00:48So that's the five deaths.
00:50In addition to three that we had before the hurricane, which were related to hurricane preparations.
00:55One man was electrocuted, one fell off a ladder, and another one, I think a tree fell on him when they were cutting the tree to prune it for a head of Melissa's arrival.
01:05There have obviously, I think, been injuries related to the hurricane, but so far all we know are those four deaths in St. Elizabeth and one in West Milan.
01:15Search and rescue continue because there are some communities that are cut off or marooned and they are going into areas that nobody has been able to reach yet today.
01:29I suspect maybe not everywhere will be reached today, but certainly by tomorrow, I believe they should be able to reach them.
01:36A lot of roads are still blocked mostly by trees that have fallen.
01:40Some landslides and boulders have fallen and some of the mud, a lot of stuff has been washed down from the hills and blocked woods.
01:51A lot of that's in St. Elizabeth, some in Portland and other parishes as well.
01:57A lot of homes destroyed.
01:59The aerial shots that we've seen from St. Elizabeth, the Prime Minister said 80 to 90% of the homes in southern part of St. Elizabeth have lost roofs or been damaged.
02:09The Black River is pretty much very devastated.
02:13That's the capital of St. Elizabeth.
02:17The police divisional headquarters for the parish has been badly damaged.
02:23Windows blown out.
02:25It was flooded yesterday.
02:26I think it also suffered some water damage.
02:30The Black River Hospital is not accepting any new patients right now.
02:34They had to evacuate the ground floor.
02:36That hospital is right on the street.
02:39You walk out of the hospital compound and you walk across the road and you are in the sea.
02:46They even built a 12-foot wall in anticipation of possible hurricanes.
02:52That didn't help.
02:54One of the buildings on the compound lost the roof.
02:58In the neighbouring parish of West Milan, the Stablamar General Hospital, we saw the roof lifting of one of the residences and other buildings on the compound lost roofs as well.
03:12The Noel Homes Hospital in Lucy, which is the capital of Hanover, that also was damaged.
03:20And I think the Falmouth General Hospital as well.
03:24In the city of Montego Bay, there has been some damage to homes.
03:29There's been some flooding as well.
03:30The Barnet River in Montego Bay burst its bank and flooded Catherine Hall neighbourhood and West Green.
03:37I know the mayor had said that in Moby that they virtually cut off half and half because of the roads impassable by the heavy flooding and debris falling onto the roadways.
03:49But I imagine that outside of the persons who were able to get to shelters, there's a number of persons that are homeless.
03:57And what is being done to alleviate those people or get them to a shelter now?
04:03Because we had before the hurricane, about 5,000.
04:06Right.
04:07Some of them are being taken to shelters.
04:10The numbers of shelters yesterday, earlier, was 15,000.
04:14Today, that number is now 25,000.
04:17The government has said they're going to keep shelters open for the immediate future because of the devastation.
04:26Let me talk a bit about the airports.
04:30The three international airports, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Kingston.
04:36Kingston will reopen at 4 for relief flights this afternoon.
04:42It will reopen for commercial traffic tomorrow morning at 7 a.m.
04:48That's the Kingston Airport.
04:49Didn't really suffer any significant damage, minimal damage.
04:53And the runway is fine.
04:55Montego Bay's airport, the larger one.
04:57That's where all the tourists comes in.
04:59Massive airport.
05:00Yeah.
05:00Thanks to international 50 gates.
05:02That will accept relief flights starting tomorrow at 10, but only relief flights.
05:10They'll make a determination between now and tomorrow when it will reopen for commercial traffic.
05:15I can tell you that that terminal building, the old part, has suffered some damage.
05:21I'm told gates 1 to 8 will be closed off, won't be used immediately.
05:26But I suspect the other, what, 42 gates would be available for use at Sankster.
05:32The Ian Fleming Airport, it's a small airport.
05:38And American Airlines is the only commercial air carrier that flies into that airport.
05:43And they will use the small 60-seater Embraer jets.
05:50And that can accept flights.
05:53They may increase flights there, given that Mube is not fully operational.
05:58And, you know, that will take people right in the heart of Ocheria.
06:02Lots of tourists will go there.
06:04So that might be possible to get more flights there.
06:07I don't know if American Airlines can reposition its fleet to send more of the 60-seater aircraft
06:14instead of the bigger jets that they would have sent to Sankster.
06:18So that's in terms of the airports.
06:22Power.
06:23More than 70% of the JPS, that's the power company's customers, are without power.
06:30So, mainly in the western parishes of Trelawney, St. James, where Montego Bay is, Hanover and West Milan,
06:38which both parishes share in the grill.
06:42St. Elizabeth and Manchester.
06:4597% to 99% of the customers in those parishes are without power.
06:51In Clarendon, it's 94%.
06:56In St. Catherine, it's 65%.
06:58And the corporate area, 45% of the capital is without power.
07:07Portmore, the city in St. Catherine, only 4.2% are without power.
07:12And in St. Thomas, only 4%.
07:14That parishes have come off pretty good.
07:19Portland, 80% without power.
07:21And those are the main ones.
07:23I don't remember the figures for St. Anne and St. Mary.
07:25Those numbers may have changed today because those were the figures at the start of today.
07:30And crews are already out there restoring power.
07:3471 linesmen were pre-positioned in the country.
07:39They came in from, flew in from, a couple from the Caribbean, some Caribbean countries,
07:45and from the United States and Canada.
07:47And I think they're expecting to bring in more.
07:50The JPS also pre-positioned equipment to help the relief because they were very tardy last
07:57and were criticized badly for that.
08:01Given the devastation, though, I think it's going to take a mammoth task to restore power.
08:06Last year, with Beryl, some persons did not get back.
08:10And that was in July, the very first few days of July.
08:13Some persons did not get power back until October.
08:17Wow.
08:19And it is going to take a long time.
08:22I suspect there are quite a few people who will be without power at Christmas this year.
08:30Milton, don't mean to cut you off.
08:32I know that this has been potentially the most powerful storm or hurricane ever recorded in history.
08:40That's something, of course, you know, phenomenal in the sense that I know Jamaica has gone through a number of hurricanes before.
08:49Not a direct hit, though.
08:51Not a direct hit.
08:52This was a direct hit, right?
08:54Correct.
08:54I was getting to that.
08:55In your experience, personally, what was this experience like, you know, hunkering down for a Category 5 hurricane?
09:05I could tell you there were a lot of persons who were just extremely worried and scared.
09:10I mean, really frightened at the prospect.
09:13We had never before had a Category 4 hurricane.
09:16Never, ever before.
09:17Category 5 hurricane.
09:19It was really ominous.
09:21Some of the weather reports, particularly the foreign ones, were very, very, you know, just paint this doomsday picture.
09:30I know persons who, for example, stopped watching them and following the reports because they were just so frightened and terrified.
09:36For the person who were in the direct part, in the St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, and Trelawney, and Montego Bay, and those parishes, who got the Category 5, because Wayne, the Corpeter in Kingston, the capital, did not.
09:52I think we got Category 3 type wins.
09:55But it was scary.
09:58I'm in our TV building where I stayed for the last two nights.
10:01It's reinforced concrete roof.
10:03All our windows have hurricane shutters.
10:07And you could hear the wind howling.
10:10And it was just so loud, right?
10:14And persons who were not even, my office has a window, but the persons who are out of the parts of the building where we slept, because we slept here, could hear it.
10:23And they said they just couldn't sleep.
10:26So can you imagine what persons in their homes and St. Elizabeth in Westmoreland were hearing that howling sound beating at your doors, your windows for hours, several hours.
10:42It was remarkable.
10:43And I know it is going to take a Herculean task.
10:47The Jamaican people are very resilient.
10:51And, of course, Prime Minister Holness have said that as long as it takes, Jamaica will recover.
10:58Infrastructurally, I know that the Western side have been hit quite badly.
11:03What time frame are you looking at to perhaps ensure that things get back to some sense of normalcy in terms of rebuilding and so on?
11:14That's difficult to say.
11:15I think when the assessments are done, then they'll be able to give better timelines.
11:21The capital, though, I think will be up and running pretty much by weekend.
11:26And I think power should be restored to most places in the capital that don't have power pretty quickly because the damage has not been that bad.
11:34There are some trees that have fallen, but it's not like in St. Elizabeth where you're on a road, I'm told, and every power line of utility pole has fallen.
11:43Right. Or trees have fallen on the power lines.
11:46It's not we did not see that kind of just devastation.
11:50Kingston, I would say, dodged a bullet.
11:52And to a fair amount, St. Catherine, which is the second biggest parish in terms of population.
11:59It's the largest parish.
12:00So the other parishes, though, which have road damage, other infrastructure damage, drainage, buildings, police stations, hospitals, schools.
12:14A lot of schools have lost roofs as well.
12:16St. Elizabeth Technical, one of the major high schools in Santa Cruz, and several buildings lost their roofs.
12:24I'm told that Monroe and Hampton, two very old schools from the 19th century, they're on a hill.
12:31They were badly damaged last year.
12:32I'm told they were hit again.
12:34They were in St. Elizabeth.
12:35The Manning School, the second oldest school in Jamaica.
12:41It's founded in 1738.
12:44It had a historic building which was housed a library, a wooden building.
12:50Damaged last year.
12:51But it's flattened, just gone, totally gone.
12:57And many of the other buildings, classrooms that have lost roofs and so on and window damaged.
13:06And, of course, labs, you know, with equipment in it will be damaged as well.
13:11So those are some issues.
13:13But there's education as well.
13:15And I did speak about health care earlier.
13:16So it's a lot of devastation all around.
13:21Well, Milton, definitely our prayers are with you and the Jamaican people.
13:25And I imagine in the days and weeks to come, there will be an outpouring of relief of food and other amenities that are needed for the Jamaican people.
13:36I want to thank you for taking your time.
13:38And we wish you Godspeed.
13:40All right.
Comments