Hurricane Melissa, a category five storm, has killed at least 19 people and left approximately 30,000 homeless in Jamaica. The devastation has been particularly severe in the southern and northwestern parts of the island, where entire towns have been destroyed.
Irish woman Orlagh Kilbride, who has lived in Jamaica for nearly a decade, described the catastrophic damage to PA news agency. «The beaches have completely eroded all the way up to the buildings,» she said. Buildings near the coast collapsed, and wooden structures were completely destroyed by winds reaching 300 kilometers per hour. «There's been whole towns just completely destroyed, and I'm not sure some of them will ever come back,» Kilbride added.
The 45-year-old Dublin native has launched a GoFundMe campaign to support recovery efforts. «There's about 30,000 people homeless, so just trying to get people back on their feet, that's what we're trying to get the funds in for,» she told PA news agency. Funds will be distributed to two local charities and the Red Cross for food, supplies, and building materials.
Unprecedented Back-to-Back Disasters
The crisis is particularly severe because communities in the south had just recovered from a hurricane the previous year. «This community in the south had just bounced back from a hurricane last year. It's really unprecedented for an island to get a hurricane year on year, like it just doesn't exist,» Kilbride said. Previous fundraising work has been wiped away, forcing communities back to square one.
Kilbride, who lives in Kingston where the impact was less severe, experienced strong winds, leaks, and lost trees in her neighborhood. «We're in a newer house so I knew our house was going to be fine, so I wasn't fearful for our family, but we know a lot of people in St Elizabeth so we were worried for them,» she told PA news agency. The contrast was stark: «Although it was very strong for us it was nothing compared to what they actually had. They were worlds apart.»
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
