Dan Rowe was among the volunteers repairing public water systems damaged by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica in October. A project leader for Veolia North America, Rowe, who helps operate Nassau County‘s water treatment facility in Wantagh, was up for the task, despite the challenges.
Rowe volunteers with Veolia Foundation, whose international mission includes assisting during humanitarian emergencies, providing development aid, strengthening the environment and supporting biodiversity. In Jamaica, Rowe worked with a team that included members of the French Red Cross, as they confronted the threat of disease and dehydration facing the island’s thousands of residents.
Rowe spent three weeks working with improvised equipment, inventing solutions in the field and navigating an international team of people he had never met before.
He said there were many “MacGyver” moments, referring to a TV character who could create a workaround and save the day even during the most dire circumstances.
“I brought along tools that I anticipated would be required but there were field challenges that required a ‘MacGyver’ solution if we were to get the island’s population potable water that would be safe to drink,” he said in a written statement.
“Another challenge was the language barrier,” Rowe said. “Unlike our teams here at Veolia North America where each member knows intuitively what the other person’s skillset is, I was working with people I had never met before, and my French is – to be polite – limited.”
Rowe also had to manage the expectations of his family back on Long Island as he worked to provide access to safe drinking water for Jamaica.
“I was gone far longer than what I expected, essentially working through a solid month with one day off but my family understood the urgency, the mission, and the commitment,” he said.
PETIT GOÂVE, Haiti (AP) — Amizia Renotte sat on a broken piece of concrete and pointed to a large pile of dirt where her house once stood before the outer bands of Hurricane Melissa crumpled it as the storm lashed Haiti’s southern region.
The Atlantic hurricane season may be over, but thousands of people like Renotte in this Carribean country and beyond are still looking for food and struggling to rebuild their lives nearly two months after the Category 5 storm pummeled the northern Caribbean region as one of the strongest Atlantic storms in recorded history.
“We ran. We had nothing to save,” Renotte said as she recalled waking up in the middle of the night surrounded by floodwaters.
Melissa killed at least 43 people across Haiti, many of them in Petit-Goâve, where residents are still digging out from under the storm that unleased deadly flooding.
Huge piles of dirt and mud now smother this southern coastal town, which once bustled with farmers and street vendors.
The groan of heavy machinery fills the air as crews slowly clear debris scattered by La Digue River, which swept away children, cars and homes in late October.
“People lost everything,” resident Clermont Wood Mandy said. “They lost their homes. They lost their children.”
Hunger persists
Petit-Goâve held a mass funeral in mid-November to say its goodbyes to loved ones, but hunger and frustration remain.
On a recent morning, people crowded around a small convenience store stocked with pasta, butter, rice and other basic items produced locally after receiving cash donations.
In line to buy something was 37-year-old Joceline Antoine, who lost five relatives in the storm.
“My house is destroyed,” she said.
Lola Castro, a regional director with the U.N.’s World Food Program, or WFP, who recently traveled to Petit-Goâve, said in a phone interview Friday that Melissa has deepened Haiti’s crises.
“Around 5.3 million people don’t have enough to eat every day in Haiti,” she said. “That’s a huge challenge.”
Castro noted that Petit-Goâve was an agricultural community that depended heavily on crops, including plantain, corn and beans.
“They have lost their income. They have lost their means of living,” she said.
‘No community will be forgotten’
Jamaica also is struggling to recover from Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in the western part of the neighboring island in late October, causing an estimated $8.8 billion in damage.
The storm killed at least 45 people, and 13 others remain missing, with an additional 32 deaths under investigation, according to Alvin Gayle, director-general of Jamaica’s emergency management office.
Authorities have reported 30 confirmed cases of leptospirosis — an infection transmitted from animals — and another 84 unconfirmed ones, with 12 related deaths. There were also two cases of tetanus, one of them fatal.
“These figures underscore the scale of the human impact and the seriousness with which the ministries, departments and agencies of government continue to approach the recovery effort,” Gayle said.
More than 100 shelters remain open in seven of Jamaica’s parishes, housing more than 1,000 people.
Meanwhile, some 160 schools remain closed.
“No community will be forgotten,” Gayle said.
Jamaica recently announced that it obtained a $150 million loan to help restore electricity as quickly as possible, with officials saying they expect power to fully be restored by the end of January.
Jamaica also has obtained a $6.7 billion package for reconstruction efforts over three years from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean; the Caribbean Development Bank; the Inter-American Development Bank Group; the International Monetary Fund; and the World Bank Group.
Call for funding
In Cuba, hundreds of people remain in makeshift shelters nearly two months after the hurricane made landfall in the eastern region of the island hours after it hit Jamaica.
No storm-related deaths were reported in Cuba, where authorities evacuated more than 700,000 people from coastal areas.
Nearly a month after the storm, the U.N. said that about 53,000 people in Cuba had been unable to return to their homes, including 7,500 living in official shelters.
Castro, of the WFP, said that Hurricane Melissa affected 6 million people overall in the Caribbean, including 1.2 million in Haiti.
Around 1.3 million people in the region now need food, security or other type of support, with WFP so far helping 725,000 of them, Castro said.
She said she hopes that number will grow, noting that the agency’s $83 million appeal is only 50% funded.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — The Dominican Republic has authorized the arrival of 800 new flights to accommodate a surge in tourists who were originally planning to vacation in Jamaica and other nearby islands but were rerouted following the devastation of Hurricane Melissa.
The flights, a combination of regular and charter ones, were approved as the Caribbean country prepares for peak tourism season, industry officials said Wednesday.
“This will have a positive impact on hotel occupancy in the Dominican Republic, and Dominican hotels have the capacity to receive that influx,” said Nairobi Santos, spokesperson for the country’s Association of Hotels and Tourism.
She said the additional flights will occur over eight months, noting that an average occupancy rate of more than 95% is projected for the holiday season.
“We authorized 800 flights in one fell swoop because all that tourism that was going to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic will benefit,” Héctor Porcella, president of the country’s Civil Aviation Board, told reporters this week.
He lamented the disaster that the Category 5 storm unleashed in the northern Caribbean last month, noting that the impact was especially hard in Jamaica, the Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti.
The number of tourists who arrived in the Dominican Republic last month rose to more than 672,000, compared with more than 575,600 in September. Officials say they expect that number to surge this month, although data was not yet available.
The Dominican Republic has so far welcomed more than 8 million visitors from January to October.
Hotel occupancy rates rose to 63% last month from 58% in September, according to statistics from the Dominican Central Bank.
Tourism is a cornerstone for the Dominican Republic’s economy, generating nearly $11 million last year.
As the Dominican Republic prepares for a higher-than-normal influx of visitors, Jamaica is struggling to recover from Hurricane Melissa after it made landfall in the western part of the island on Oct. 28.
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said there have been several flight cancellations, and some major hotels have said they don’t anticipate reopening until mid- or late 2026.
But Bartlett said earlier this week that he expects about 60% of hotel rooms to be available starting in mid-December.
He also noted that cruise ships have visited Jamaica since the storm, bringing some 32,000 passengers so far, with that number expected to double next week.
Melissa ravaged Jamaica’s western region, with 76% of the power grid operational as of Wednesday, nearly a month after the storm hit, said Alvin Gayle, director of the island’s emergency management office.
Meanwhile 82% of customers had water, he added.
The storm killed 45 people, with 16 others still missing, Gayle said.
Eleven other people in Jamaica have died of suspected or confirmed leptospirosis, with 91 overall suspected cases reported, said Health Minister Christopher Tufton.
A Christian missionary father and his daughter were killed when a small plane bound for a hurricane relief mission in Jamaica crashed in a South Florida neighborhood.Christian ministry organization Ignite the Fire identified the two victims of the Monday morning crash as the group’s founder, Alexander Wurm, 53, and his daughter Serena Wurm, 22.The pair were bringing humanitarian aid to Jamaica, according to the organization, when the Beechcraft King Air plane they were flying in crashed into a pond in a residential area of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, narrowly missing homes. As of Tuesday morning, investigators had not reported any other victims. In recent weeks, Alexander Wurm had helped deliver medical supplies, water filters and StarLink satellite internet equipment to Jamaica for the relief organization Crisis Response International, according to a video statement the group posted online. “He really made a difference in the lives of the people on the ground by getting the resources in that he did. He saved lives and he gave his life,” Crisis Response International founder Sean Malone added. According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the plane was manufactured in 1976 and its registered owner is listed as International Air Services, a company that markets itself as specializing in providing trust agreements to non-U.S. citizens that enable them to register their aircraft with the FAA. A person who answered the company’s phone Monday afternoon declined to answer questions from a reporter, stating “no comment” and ending the phone call.Posts by Alexander Wurm on social media in recent days suggested the evangelist had recently acquired the plane to further his missionary work across the Caribbean, describing the aircraft as “an older King Air with brand new engines,” and “perfect” to ferry deliveries of generators, batteries and building materials to Jamaica. Photos and videos on social media show Wurm posing for a picture in the plane’s cockpit and unloading boxes of supplies from the packed aircraft with teams of volunteers.The flight tracking website FlightAware shows the plane made four other trips to or from Jamaica in the past week, traveling between George Town in the Cayman Islands and Montego Bay and Negril in Jamaica, before landing in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. A powerful Category 5 storm, Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28 and tied for the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane in history. The storm also caused devastation in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and prompted relief organizations to mobilize.
Christian ministry organization Ignite the Fire identified the two victims of the Monday morning crash as the group’s founder, Alexander Wurm, 53, and his daughter Serena Wurm, 22.
The pair were bringing humanitarian aid to Jamaica, according to the organization, when the Beechcraft King Air plane they were flying in crashed into a pond in a residential area of the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs, narrowly missing homes. As of Tuesday morning, investigators had not reported any other victims.
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In recent weeks, Alexander Wurm had helped deliver medical supplies, water filters and StarLink satellite internet equipment to Jamaica for the relief organization Crisis Response International, according to a video statement the group posted online.
“He really made a difference in the lives of the people on the ground by getting the resources in that he did. He saved lives and he gave his life,” Crisis Response International founder Sean Malone added.
According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the plane was manufactured in 1976 and its registered owner is listed as International Air Services, a company that markets itself as specializing in providing trust agreements to non-U.S. citizens that enable them to register their aircraft with the FAA. A person who answered the company’s phone Monday afternoon declined to answer questions from a reporter, stating “no comment” and ending the phone call.
Posts by Alexander Wurm on social media in recent days suggested the evangelist had recently acquired the plane to further his missionary work across the Caribbean, describing the aircraft as “an older King Air with brand new engines,” and “perfect” to ferry deliveries of generators, batteries and building materials to Jamaica.
Photos and videos on social media show Wurm posing for a picture in the plane’s cockpit and unloading boxes of supplies from the packed aircraft with teams of volunteers.
The flight tracking website FlightAware shows the plane made four other trips to or from Jamaica in the past week, traveling between George Town in the Cayman Islands and Montego Bay and Negril in Jamaica, before landing in Fort Lauderdale on Friday.
A powerful Category 5 storm, Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Oct. 28 and tied for the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane in history. The storm also caused devastation in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and prompted relief organizations to mobilize.
Systems will provide capacity to support up to 36,000 people with safe water
PHOENIX, November 8, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, Planet Water Foundation, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to providing access to safe drinking water, has mobilized its Disaster Response team to Jamaica to deploy emergency water filtration systems in communities which have been severely impacted by the category 5 hurricane.
Multiple high capacity AquaBlock emergency water filtration systems have arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, aboard the largest single aid flight to reach the island since Hurricane Melissa made landfall.
Each AquaBlock system can produce up to 700 liters of safe drinking water per hour, enough to support up to 6,000 people per system. These systems will now be deployed by Planet Water Foundation team members together with deployment partner ISRATECH Jamaica in some of the hardest hit communities across the island.
“It has been heartbreaking to see the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa” said Mark Steele Founder & CEO of Planet Water Foundation. “Combined, the six AquaBlock systems which have arrived in Kingston have the capacity to support up to 36,000 people with safe water access, and our team is working tirelessly to get them into the communities that need them as quickly as possible.”
This response is made possible through the generous support of Planet Water Foundation’s corporate partners – BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), Hit Promotional Products, MCI (Motor Controls Inc), PromoCares, Royal Caribbean Group, The Starbucks Foundation, Watts Water Technologies, and Xylem.
About Planet Water Foundation
Planet Water Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to providing access to safe drinking water. Through the installation of water filtration systems, handwashing infrastructures, and the implementation of water-health & hygiene education programs, Planet Water focuses on two critical areas: supporting schools, children, and communities in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions, as well as the provision of safe drinking water in the aftermath of natural disasters worldwide. Since 2009, Planet Water has deployed projects that provide safe water access to more than four million people across 32 countries. For more information, visit www.planet-water.org
Recovery efforts continue in Jamaica, over a week after Hurricane Melissa ravaged the island. Now a Montgomery County Council member is working to provide disaster relief.
Laurie-Anne Sayles on a call with her mother in Jamaica after she got power back following Hurricane Melissa.(Courtesy Laurie-Anne Sayles)
Laurie-Anne Sayles on a call with her mother in Jamaica after she got power back following Hurricane Melissa.(Courtesy Laurie-Anne Sayles)
Recovery efforts continue in Jamaica, over a week after Hurricane Melissa ravaged the island as a Category 5 storm. Now, a Montgomery County Council member — who’s the daughter of Jamaican immigrants — is working vigorously to provide disaster relief.
“Jamaicans understand hurricane season, but a Category 5 is not anything that they were prepared for,” said At-Large Council member Laurie-Anne Sayles.
Her mother, Hilda Williams-Sayles, had just returned to Jamaica in September after spending 25 years in Montgomery County working as a social worker. She planned to spend half the year in her home country, and Sayles was going to visit her over the holidays.
Then Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica as one of the island’s strongest storms on record.
“She’s running low on water,” Sayles said. “There’s no flights coming in or coming out of Montego Bay, so she’d have to get to Kingston. And it’s taking almost eight hours to get back and forth because of the devastation and the roads not being cleared away just yet.”
More than two dozen communities in Jamaica are still cut off by landslides and flooding. Roughly half the island remains without power. According to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, preliminary estimates show the Category 5 hurricane caused at least $6 billion in damage.
Because of the dire conditions, Sayles said she wants to bring her mother back to the U.S. as soon as possible.
“It’s hard because her heart’s there and she sees the devastation, she doesn’t want to leave. So many of us here wish we could be down there doing the hard work, helping to clean up, helping to clear roads, helping those in need,” she said through tears. “So I understand her struggle, that she doesn’t want to leave, but we’re so worried.”
In an effort to help, Sayles has partnered with Maryland Del. Jheanelle Wilkins and the Embassy of Jamaica in D.C. to collect much needed supplies for the island, including bottled water, nonperishable food, first aid kits, soap, diapers, blankets and towels.
“We cannot thank the community enough, because the response has been overwhelming,” Sayles said.
There are two drop-off locations: The Silver Spring Civic Building on Veterans Plaza and the Montgomery College Bioscience Education Center in Germantown. They’re accepting donations through Nov. 17. You can also volunteer to help sort the supplies or donate money online.
“This is Jamaica’s Hurricane Katrina,” she said. “It’s devastating. It’s heartbreaking. But we just appreciate all the love and support that we’ve received so far.”
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One viral video shows what appears to be four sharks swimming in a Jamaican hotel’s pool as floodwaters allegedly brought on by Hurricane Melissa swamp the area. Another purportedly depicts Jamaica’s Kingston airport completely ravaged by the storm. But neither of these events happened, it’s just AI-generated misinformation circulating on social media as the storm churned across the Caribbean this week.
These videos and others have racked up millions of views on social media platforms, including X, TikTok and Instagram.
Some of the clips appear to be spliced together or based on footage of old disasters. Others appear to be created entirely by AI video generators.
“I am in so many WhatsApp groups and I see all of these videos coming. Many of them are fake,” said Jamaica’s Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon on Monday. “And so we urge you to please listen to the official channels.”
Although it’s common for hoax photos, videos and misinformation to surface during natural disasters, they’re usually debunked quickly. But videos generated by new artificial intelligence tools have taken the problem to a new level by making it easy to create and spread realistic clips.
In this case, the content has been showing up in social media feeds alongside genuine footage shot by local residents and news organizations, sowing confusion among social media users.
Here are a few steps you can take to reduce your chances of getting fooled.
Check for watermarks
Look for a watermark logo indicating that the video was generated by Sora, a text-to-video tool launched by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, or other AI video generators. These will usually appear in one of the corners of a video or photo.
It is quite easy to remove these logos using third-party tools, so you can also check for blurs, pixelation or discoloration where a watermark should be.
Take a closer look
Look more closely at videos for unclear details. While the sharks-in-pool video appears realistic at first glance, it looks less believable upon closer examination because one of the sharks has a strange shape.
You might see objects that blend together, or details such as lettering on a sign that are garbled, which are telltale signs of AI-generated imagery. Branding is also something to look out for as many platforms are cautious about reproducing specific company logos.
Experts say it’s going to get increasingly harder to tell the difference between reality and deepfakes as the technology improves.
Experts noted that Melissa is the first big natural disaster since OpenAI launched the latest version of its video generation tool Sora last month.
“Now, with the rise of easily accessible and powerful tools like Sora, it has become even easier for bad actors to create and distribute highly convincing synthetic videos,” said Sofia Rubinson, a senior editor at NewsGuard, which analyzes online misinformation.
“In the past, people could often identify fakes through telltale signs like unnatural motion, distorted text, or missing fingers. But as these systems improve, many of those flaws are disappearing, making it increasingly difficult for the average viewer to distinguish AI-generated content from authentic footage.”
Why create deepfakes around a crisis?
AI expert Henry Ajder said most of the hurricane deepfakes he’s seen aren’t inherently political. He suspects it’s “much closer to more traditional kind of click-based content, which is to try and get engagement, to try and get clicks.”
On X, users can get paid based on the amount of engagement their posts get. YouTubers can earn money from ads.
A video that racks up millions of views could earn the creator a few thousand dollars, Ajder said, not bad for the amount of effort needed.
Social media accounts also use videos to expand their follower base in order to promote projects, products or services, Ajder said.
So check who’s posting the video. If the account has a track record of clickbait-style content, be skeptical.
But keep in mind that the people behind deepfake videos aren’t always trying to hide.
“Some creators are just trying to do interesting things using AI that they think are going to get people’s attention,” he said.
So who is behind the account?
While it’s unclear who exactly created the pool shark video, one version found on Instagram carries the watermark for a TikTok account, Yulian_Studios. That account’s TikTok profile describes itself, in Spanish, as a “Content creator with AI visual effects in the Dominican Republic.”
The shark video can’t be found on the account’s page, but it does have another AI-generated clip of an obese man clinging to a palm tree as hurricane winds blow in Jamaica.
Trust your gut
Context matters. Take a beat to consider whether what you’re seeing is plausible. The Poynter journalism website advises that if you see a situation that seems “exaggerated, unrealistic or not in character,” consider that it could be a deepfake.
That includes the audio. AI videos used to come with synthetic voice-overs that had unusual cadence or tone, but newer tools can create synchronized sound that sound realistic.
And if you found it on X, make sure to check whether there’s a community note attached, which is the platform’s user-powered fact-checking tool.
One version of the shark pool video on X comes with a community note that says: “This video footage and the voice used were both created by artificial intelligence, it is not real footage of hurricane Melissa in Jamaica.”
Go to an official source
Don’t just rely on random strangers on the internet for information. The Jamaican government has been posting storm updates and so has the National Hurricane Center.
The Jamaican government on Monday said at least 32 deaths have been attributed to Hurricane Melissa, with Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon saying there are possibly eight more unconfirmed deaths.
With its tourism season just a month away, officials are rushing to rebuild from the catastrophic Category 5 storm that shredded the island’s western region. Before the hurricane hit on Oct. 28, the government expected Jamaica’s tourism industry to grow by 7% this winter season and was preparing to welcome an estimated 4.3 million visitors.
Now, officials are scrambling to repair hotels and clear debris in the western half of the island in the hope of securing tourist dollars at a moment when they’re needed most.
Melissa was the most powerful hurricane to lash the island since record-keeping began 174 years ago. The National Hurricane Center said the storm initially came ashore near New Hope, on the southwestern coast of Jamaica.
People repair the roof of a resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
Matias Delacroix / AP
Before the storm, the Jamaican government said it had done all it could to prepare. “There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness had said.
“We are still doing our assessments, but most of the damage was in the northwest and southwest,” said Christopher Jarrett, who leads the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association.
He noted that the popular Negril area in Westmoreland was spared major damage.
All international airports in Jamaica have reopened and are receiving commercial flights. But almost a week after one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record struck the western end of Jamaica, tourism officials were still trying to get a true picture of the damage to the sector — a mainstay of the island’s economy.
Jarrett said the lobby group that represents private hotels and attractions on the island is still unable to reach many of its members, especially in the western parish of Hanover, as communication and electricity services were down.
“Every individual member who was affected is doing everything to get back up and running,” he said.
In recent days, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said he expected Jamaica’s tourism sector to be back to normal by Dec. 15, the start of the island’s peak tourism season.
“It’s doable for some and not for others,” Jarrett said of the timeline, pointing out that the larger hotel chains would be able to recover quicker.
Passengers check in at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
Matias Delacroix / AP
Jarrett, who operates the family-owned Altamont Court Hotel that has properties in Kingston and Montego Bay, said only one property in Montego Bay sustained roof damage and that repairs were underway.
Despite the disruption to the important tourism sector, Jarrett said he doesn’t expect the economic fallout to be significant. He said many hotels in the capital of Kingston and in the northern coastal town of Ocho Rios were gaining business from the influx of aid workers and volunteers in the hurricane’s aftermath.
“Right now, we’re giving discounts, between 25% and 50%, and some [hotels] are giving complimentary stays as well,” Jarrett said.
Tourism is Jamaica’s main source of foreign exchange earnings, contributing a combined 30% to gross domestic product directly and indirectly. It employs an estimated 175,000 people and is a major economic driver for other sectors in the Jamaican economy, such as construction, banking and finance, utilities and agriculture.
The disruption to the tourism sector is also affecting many providers of goods and services.
“With some of the hotels closed and most of the tourists gone, many of us are left without work. This storm didn’t just destroy buildings; it shattered jobs and incomes for many of us and our families,” said Patricia Mighten, who works in the western parish of Hanover as a hotel housekeeper.
Desrine Smith, a craft vendor who plies her trade in the resort town of Falmouth in the northwestern parish of Trelawny, echoed those sentiments.
“Going days without tourists coming to buy anything means no sales and no money. We survive on daily earnings, and now everything is uncertain,” she said. “The hurricane has impacted our pockets hard.”
Crews are still trying to access 25 isolated areas in western Jamaica as helicopters continue to drop food for them. Nearly half of all power customers remain without electricity.
Rescuers and aid workers fanned out across Jamaica on Saturday to distribute food and water and reach communities still isolated four days after Hurricane Melissa hit the island.
One of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall, Melissa has been blamed for at least 19 deaths in Jamaica, 31 in nearby Haiti, and at least one death in the Dominican Republic. Melissa made landfall in southwest Jamaica on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph.
An aerial view shows damaged buildings in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, Jamaica, on Oct. 31, 2025.
RICARDO MAKYN/AFP via Getty Images
Health Minister Christopher Tufton recognized that the death toll in Jamaica was probably higher as many places are still hard to access, but said that it would be unwise to speculate.
Less than half the island has communications, and nearly 400 water systems were knocked out by the storm.
The U.S. Army deployed three CH-47 Chinook helicopters to Jamaica Friday for humanitarian and disaster relief efforts, with another five helicopters on the way.
According to Agence-France Presse, Jamaican officials on Saturday also announced plans to set up multiple field hospitals after several hospitals in western Jamaica were especially hard-hit by the storm.
“That facility will come fully equipped, which will include an operating theater and other critical diagnostic equipment, and some team members to support the local team,” Tufton said in a briefing Saturday, according to AFP, adding that officials expect the hospital to be up and running in the coming week.
There were desperate scenes in Montego Bay, as residents lined up to get food, water and cash. Many U.S. tourists are still working to make their way home. The Florida-based nonprofit Gray Bull Rescue Foundation found a way to get 341 American citizens back from two very hard-hit Montego Bay resorts.
Essential relief supplies are now rolling into hurricane-stricken St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland, most of which had been cut off by fallen concrete posts and trees strewn across roads.
But in some parts, people were forced to dip buckets into rivers, collecting the muddy water for everyday use, while others have been drinking coconut water and roasting breadfruit.
In Westmoreland, mangled metal sheets, splintered wooden frames of houses and fragments of furniture littered the coastline.
Social Security Minister Pearnel Charles Jr. was among several convoys of emergency responders en route to deliver ready-to-eat meals, water, tarpaulins, blankets, medicine and other essentials.
“The priority now is to get help to those who need it,” said Charles Jr. during a brief stop en route to Black River for the first time with long-awaited relief supplies. Prime Minister Andrew Holness had declared Black River ground zero and said the town will have to be rebuilt.
The Jamaica Defense Force set up a satellite disaster relief site at the Luana community center near Black River where care packages are being dispatched to hurricane-stricken residents.
Many have been without vital supplies since Tuesday and quickly converged around a JDF truck as word spread that relief supplies were being distributed in the sweltering afternoon sun.
“Everyone is homeless right now,” Rosemarie Gayle said. “Thank you, thank you. I can’t say thank you enough,” she said, as she accepted a package of rice, beans, sardines, powdered milk, cooking oil and other essentials.
A vehicle drives through a damaged area in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, on Oct. 31, 2025, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.
RICARDO MAKYN/AFP via Getty Images
Melissa has left devastation in its wake, snapping power lines and toppling buildings, disrupting food and water distribution and destroying crop fields.
Satellite photographs showed the southwestern Jamaican fishing village of White House and the nearby town of Black River before and after Melissa slammed into the island. Each pair captures a once vibrant-looking town reduced to dirt and rubble.
Some people have been walking for miles in search of basic goods and to check on loved ones, as more than 60% of the island remained without power. Helicopters have been dropping food in cut-off communities.
“People are in shock and they’re waiting on relief,” said World Vision’s national director of domestic humanitarian and emergency affairs Mike Bassett, who traveled to the town of Santa Cruz in St. Elizabeth on Friday.
“The biggest needs are clean water, tarps for roof damage, canned proteins, hygiene and cleaning supplies,” he said.
On Saturday, the United Nations’ World Food Program received 2,000 boxes of emergency food assistance shipped from Barbados, to be distributed in shelters and in the most-affected communities in the St. Elizabeth area.
“They will help meet the needs of 6,000 people for one week,” said communications officer for WFP Alexis Masciarelli.
Tufton also warned about the risk of increased mosquitoes, waterborne diseases and food poisoning. “Please discard spoiled food,” he said.
A U.S. regional disaster assistance response team was on the ground after being activated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week, the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica said.
“The United States stands with Jamaica as they respond to the impacts of the hurricane and remains prepared to swiftly deliver emergency relief items,” it said.
Dorothy Headley, 75, prepares a meal of cow liver over a wood fire as damaged property is seen in the background in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in the Watercress community of Westmoreland, Jamaica, on Oct. 31, 2025.
RICARDO MAKYN/AFP via Getty Images
Jamaica’s Water and Environment Minister Matthew Samuda took to the social media platform X in a desperate bid to find tarpaulin after Melissa tore off scores of roofs on homes in western Jamaica. X users chimed in to help, indicating where they had seen supplies.
Falmouth, a popular fishing spot on Jamaica’s north coast, had suffered significant damage including flooding and flattened buildings, Holness said on Saturday.
“Our immediate priority is to restore electricity and telecommunications and to ensure that essential services, particularly at the Falmouth Hospital, are stabilized,” he said on X, adding that Jamaica would rebuild “stronger and wiser.”
Following the devastation, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility said that it would make a record payout to Jamaica of $70.8 million.
The facility enables countries to pool their individual risks to provide affordable coverage against natural disasters. The payout will be made within 14 days, the group said on Friday.
Finance Minister Fayval Williams said Thursday that the CCRIF insurance policy was just one part of the government’s financial plan to respond to natural disasters. She pointed to a contingencies fund, a national natural disaster reserve and a catastrophe bond.
Government officials have said damage assessment is still ongoing.
TOPSHOT – An aerial view seen October 29, 2025 shows the destroyed Black River Market and surrounding buildings following the passage the previous day of Hurricane Melissa in Black River, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa bore down on the Bahamas October 29 after cutting a path of destruction through the Caribbean, leaving 30 people dead or missing in Haiti and parts of Jamaica and Cuba in ruins. Somewhat weakened but still threatening, Melissa will bring damaging winds and flooding rains to the Bahamas Wednesday before moving on to Bermuda late Thursday, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC). (Photo by Ricardo Makyn / AFP) (Photo by RICARDO MAKYN/AFP via Getty Images)
RICARDO MAKYN
AFP via Getty Images
As Jamaica slowly recovers from the most catastrophic hurricane to hit the country, more than two dozen Floridians stranded there have been rescued and returned home Saturday afternoon, officials said.
Hurricane Melissa killed at least 19 people in Jamaica and left thousands in the country without power, water or internet. It leveled entire neighborhoods, including multiple hospitals. Amongst the wreckage, 28 Floridians were caught in the storm and left stranded.
Around 3 p.m. Saturday, Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X that a rescue flight had landed in Tampa with those Floridians who had been in Jamaica. The Florida Division of Emergency Management and other officials have been devising a plan to rescue the 28 since they learned of their presence in Jamaica on Thursday.
On Thursday, I learned of Florida residents who were stranded in Jamaica in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, a category 5 storm. At my direction, @FLSERT and other state officials immediately went to work on a plan to get them home.
The hurricane also ravished Haiti and Cuba. The death toll in Haiti climbed to at least 30 people with 20 more still missing. Melissa doused the region with rain, submerging farms and triggering fatal floods.
While no deaths have been reported in Cuba, 735,000 people were evacuated before Melissa hit five provinces that exposed more than 3 million people to deadly conditions.
Miami Herald Cops and Breaking News Reporter Devoun Cetoute covers a plethora of Florida topics, from breaking news to crime patterns. He was on the breaking news team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022. He’s a graduate of the University of Florida, born and raised in Miami-Dade. Theme parks, movies and cars are on his mind in and out of the office.
A Boston family reunited Friday after three members were stranded for days in Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa.
A long-awaited hug, filled with tears of relief, came at Logan Airport Friday after days of uncertainty. Three family members were stranded in Jamaica after the island was hit by the Category 5 storm.
It was the strongest ever to hit the island.
“It’s great,” Melisa Pérez said after returning to Boston. “We just made it.”
The storm caused significant damage after making landfall in Jamaica and has weakened as it continues to make its way through the Caribbean.
They were there to celebrate Wanda Brandao’s 50th birthday. It turned into the most terrifying experience for her, her sister and her niece.
“My birthday was yesterday,” Brandao said. “Another life.”
“We were going into this hurricane blindsided, not knowing if it was going to go on top of us, to the left, to the right,” said Leilani Pérez. “The unknown was really scary.”
They recounted the moments of terror before the impact of the storm, when they had to hunker down at their hotel with hundreds of other people.
“Like 600 people,” Brandao said. “No AC, and you’re just looking at people, you’re looking at the little kids.”
People in Massachusetts with loved ones in Jamaica said they briefly lost contact as the storm raged.
When the hurricane started to land, water started getting into the building, and I remember her Facetiming me, and she was going into panic mode, and I was going into panic mode,” said Henry Pérez, who was in the U.S.
The family was determined to get everyone back home, booking three flights and even a private jet to Boston.
“I feel relieved,” Henry Pérez said. “I’m nervous, anxious, I just want to hug my girls and my sister in-law.”
The rumble of large machinery, whine of chain saws and chopping of machetes echoed through communities across the northern Caribbean as they dug out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and surveyed the damage it left behind.
The storm was being blamed for at least 45 deaths, mostly in Haiti and Jamaica. It also hit Cuba hard.
Authorities said 19 people were killed in Jamaica, at least 25 in Haiti and at least one in the Dominican Republic.
Melissa was over the open waters of the Atlantic racing toward the Bermuda vicinity early Friday packing 90 mph maximum sustained winds, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A hurricane warning was in effect for the wealthy British territory.
But the agency said, “Gradual weakening is expected during the next couple of days, and Melissa is expected to become a post-tropical low by tonight.”
In Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities in the island’s southeast that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record.
Residents gather amid debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa on a street in Black River, Jamaica, on Oct. 30, 2025.
Matias Delacroix / AP
Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.
“I don’t have a house now,” said Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in the southern parish of St. Elizabeth, as he held onto his bicycle, the only possession of value left after the storm.
Emergency relief flights were landing at Jamaica’s main international airport as crews distributed water, medicine and other basic supplies. Helicopters dropped food as they thrummed above communities where the storm flattened homes, wiped out roads and destroyed bridges, cutting them off from assistance.
“The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened,” Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon said.
Officials said the dead in Jamaica included a child, and they expected the death toll to keep rising. In one isolated community, residents pleaded with officials to remove the body of a victim tangled in a tree. On Thursday, dozens of U.S. search-and-rescue experts landed in Jamaica along with their dogs.
More than 13,000 people remained crowded into shelters, with 72% of the island without power and only 35% of mobile phone sites operational, officials said. People clutched cash as they formed long lines at the few gas stations and supermarkets open in affected areas.
“We understand the frustration, we understand your anxiety, but we ask for your patience,” said Daryl Vaz, Jamaica’s telecommunications and energy minister.
Water trucks were mobilized to serve many of Jamaica’s rural communities that aren’t connected to the government’s utility system, Water Minister Matthew Samuda said.
No reported deaths but Cuba far from spared
In Cuba, heavy equipment began to clear blocked roads and highways and the military helped rescue people trapped in isolated communities and at risk from landslides.
No deaths were reported after the Civil Defense evacuated more than 735,000 people across eastern Cuba ahead of the storm. Residents were slowly starting to return home Thursday.
A man stands next to a damaged house after Hurricane Melissa passed Boca de Dos Rios village, Santiago de Cuba province, Cuba on Oct. 30, 2025.
YAMIL LAGE / AFP via Getty Images
The town of El Cobre in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba was one of the hardest hit. Home to some 7,000 people, it is also the site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba who is deeply venerated by Catholics and practitioners of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion.
“We went through this very badly. So much wind, so much wind. Zinc roofs were torn off. Some houses completely collapsed. It was a disaster,” said Odalys Ojeda, a 61-year-old retiree, as she looked up at the sky from her living room where the roof and other parts of the house were torn away.
Even the basilica was hit.
“Here at the sanctuary, the carpentry, stained glass and even the masonry suffered extensive damage,” Father Rogelio Dean Puerta said.
A televised Civil Defense meeting chaired by President Miguel Díaz-Canel didn’t provide an official estimate of the damage. However, officials from the affected provinces – Santiago, Granma, Holguín, Guantánamo, and Las Tunas – reported losses of roofs, power lines and fiber optic telecommunications cables, as well as roads cut off, isolating communities, and heavy losses in banana, cassava and coffee plantations.
Many communities were still without electricity, internet and telephone service because of downed transformers and power lines.
In an unusual statement Thursday, the U.S. State Department said Washington was “ready to assist the Cuban people.” It said the U.S. “is prepared to provide immediate humanitarian assistance directly and through local partners who can deliver it more effectively to those in need.”
The statement didn’t specify how the cooperation would be coordinated or whether contact had been made with the Cuban government, with which it maintains a bitter conflict that includes six decades of economic and financial sanctions.
Haiti reeling
Melissa also unleashed catastrophic flooding in Haiti, where at least 20 people were reported missing, mostly in the country’s southern region. Some 15,000 people also remained in shelters.
“It is a sad moment for the country,” said Laurent Saint-Cyr, president of Haiti’s transitional presidential council.
Jules Marcelin, who says he had two family members die in deadly flooding caused by Hurricane Melissa, shows the damage to his home in Petit Goave, Haiti, on Oct. 30, 2025.
Egeder Pq Fildor / REUTERS
He said officials expect the death toll to rise and noted that the government was mobilizing resources to search for people and provide emergency relief.
Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Hurricane Melissa killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in Petit-Goâve, where more than 160 homes were damaged and 80 others destroyed.
Steven Guadard said Melissa killed his entire family in Petit-Goâve, including four children ranging in age from 1 month to 8 years.
Michelet Dégange, who has lived in Petit-Goâve for three years, said Melissa left him homeless.
“There is no place to rest the body; we are hungry,” he said. “The authorities don’t think about us. I haven’t closed my eyes since the bad weather began.”
When Melissa came ashore in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph on Tuesday, it tied strength records for Atlantic hurricanes making landfall, both in wind speed and barometric pressure.
Melissa brushed past the southeast Bahamas on Wednesday, forcing officials to evacuate 1,400 people ahead of the storm.
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba — The rumble of large machinery, whine of chain saws and chopping of machetes echoed through communities across the northern Caribbean on Thursday as they dug out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and surveyed the damage left behind.
In Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities in the island’s southeast that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record.
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By ARIEL FERNÁNDEZ, ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ and JOHN MYERS JR. – Associated Press
Key West, Florida — Across the U.S., there are furious efforts to get aid into the Caribbean nation of Jamaica following the trail of destruction and devastation left by Hurricane Melissa.
Tens of thousands remain in shelters, and about 490,000 homes and businesses were still without power as of Thursday, or about 72% of the island, according to Jamaican officials. More than 130 roads remain blocked by debris.
Melissa, which made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, was responsible for at least four deaths in Jamaica.
“I think the entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened,” Jamaican Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dana Dixon said in a news conference Thursday.
In Key West, Florida, Project DYNAMO, a nonprofit group of military veterans with unique search and rescue experience, is bringing in supplies for Jamaicans and providing flights home for stranded Americans.
“We have Americans that are in trouble,” James Judge, team leader for Project DYNAMO, told CBS News. “They’re in a very bad area right now. They’re experiencing arguably the worst experience of their life.”
At the Global Empowerment Mission, a nonprofit aid organization headquartered near Miami, Shanna Ford, who is from Jamaica, is one of dozens of volunteers packing up basic supplies for survival, including food, water and tarps for protection from the elements.
“It was just really nerve-wracking for me to see that happening to the island that I know and love,” Ford said.
Ford still has family in Jamaica, including her father, who rode out the storm in Kingston.
“As the storm was hitting, we didn’t have immediate communication because the network was in and out,” Ford said.
Michael Capponi, president of the Global Empowerment Mission, says Florida’s close ties to the Caribbean has led to a wave of volunteers.
“We have the second-largest Jamaican diaspora community in south Florida,” Capponi said. “If you’re Jamaican, you cannot just sit home and watch this on the news. So they’re all here coming every hour.”
People walk through a flooded street following Hurricane Melissa in Petit-Goave, southwest of Port-au-Prince, on Oct. 30, 2025.
CLARENS SIFFROY
AFP via Getty Images
The death toll from Hurricane Melissa in Haiti continued to climb Thursday, with authorities saying that at least 30 people are now dead and 20 others are missing.
The biggest toll occurred in the country’s gang-ridden West region, when a swollen Digue River overflowed its banks and caused widespread flooding in the coastal town of Petit-Goâve, southwest of the capital. At least 23 people died, including 10 children, Haiti’s Office of Civil Protection said in the disaster.
“The search for victims is still under way,” the disaster office said in its latest report. “The Grise River is also swollen and has swept away a house in Tabarre.”
The hurricane, which made landfall on Tuesday in Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, didn’t make a direct hit on Haiti. But as it battered the southwestern coast of Jamaica, Melissa winds and rains lashed the southern coast of Haiti, causing deadly floods that washed out roads, submerged cars, wiped out crops and buried homes under landslides.
The head of the United Nations Office for Migration, speaking to reporters in New York on Thursday, said aid agencies still do not yet have a full view of the storm’s devastation after Haitians were forced to endure more than a week of rainfall.
“We need to do the assessments to really understand the extent of the damage and the human toll,” Gregoire Goodstein, the head of mission for office, said.
Those assessments require traveling on a World Food Program helicopter to the affected regions due to gangs’ control of key roads. “Because of the weather we’ve had to interrupt a lot of the flights,” Goodstein said.
But the report from Haiti’s disaster office is starting to give some idea of not just the damages, but also how the deaths and the devastation occurred.
In the town of Dame-Marie in the Grand’Anse, a man was injured when a tree fell as he rode his motorcycle. “His passenger is missing,” the report said.
A woman walks past her house that was destroyed by Hurricane Melissa in Petit-Goave, southwest of Port-au-Prince, on October 30, 2025. CLARENS SIFFROY AFP via Getty Images
In the Artibonite region one person died, and 250 people were displaced in the town of Saint-Marc, where residents have been fighting against a take-over by armed gangs.
Several cities were under water, particularly the town of Corail, where the downtown area was flooded. There was also coastal flooding in Anse-d’Hainault and the offshore Cayemites Islands.
The roofs of schools were blown off and at least 659 homes in the region of the Nippes were flooded.
Melissa caused significant damage to roads, particularly in the southeast region of the country. The Gosseline River washed away part of a major road that links the town of Jacmel with the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Blockages were also eeported by local authorities in the towns of Belle-Anse and Marigot in the southeast. Rivers flooded in the regions of the Grand’Anse.
The impact in Haiti is complicated by its ongoing humanitarian crisis, which Goodstein said is creating “immense suffering.”
“We have 1.4 million people that are displaced because of gang violence,” he said. “So all of this is coming on top of the very critical situation that we’re facing now.”
Cars are submerged in mud following Hurricane Melissa in Petit-Goave, southwest of Port-au-Prince, on October 30, 2025. CLARENS SIFFROY AFP via Getty Images
In addition to the roads, farms in the south have also sustained damage due to flooding.
That will likely worsen the country’s already dire food crisis. There are currently 5.7 million people, about half the country’s population, who are going hungry every day, Goodstein said. There have also been cases of cholera
“So we’re also having a public health emergency on top of all the existing vulnerabilities,” he added, stressing that the U.N.’s ongoing humanitarian response plan remains “grossly underfunded.”
“This is really putting at risk.. our ability to continue with life-saving operations, whether it’s linked to hurricanes or to the existing crisis linked to gang violence,” Goodstein said.
“What we need right now is the funding,” he said. “We have the teams on the ground, we have the coordination structures with the government, but we don’t have the resources.”
Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.
As Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica, individuals and organizations in Central Florida were getting ready to provide the help the island would most certainly need. “Now we’re seeing the complete devastation…” said attorney Dan Newlin. Newlin said in a matter of hours, he and his team were able to pull together about 500 pounds of supplies, including food, medicine, and diapers. He said two of his planes will fly to Jamaica on Thursday morning. He said first, they’ll make a stop in Miami to pick up recording artist Shaggy, a Jamaican American who has a charitable organization. “He is going to go into the devastation area and actually play a very personal role,” Newlin said. “He plans on staying there. I’m going to be doing the transporting of goods, so I’ll be coming back here and then go back while he actually works his way into the area that has the most destruction.”Newlin said he has a strong connection to Jamaica himself and has been working with an organization that helps kids needing heart surgery on the island for the last five years. He said for this mission, it will probably be three to five flights to bring all of the supplies they’ve gathered. Other organizations and individuals in Central Florida spent Wednesday stepping up too. Including Kissimmee vice mayor Angela Eady, who brought together a task force of groups wanting to help at Solid Rock Community Church on Wednesday night. She said her own experience after a hurricane compelled her to help. “I know every feeling that every single parent that’s over on that island that has children to take care of that they don’t know how they’re going to eat tomorrow, I was there,” Eady said. Their task force is still in the early stages, but she said they will be collecting supplies and donations at Solid Rock Church. “Anything that you’re willing to give, whether it’s your time, your talent, or your treasure, which is your finances, we will accept,” She said. As far as what supplies they’ll be collecting, the church said to keep an eye out for updates on their website here.
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —
As Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica, individuals and organizations in Central Florida were getting ready to provide the help the island would most certainly need.
“Now we’re seeing the complete devastation…” said attorney Dan Newlin.
Newlin said in a matter of hours, he and his team were able to pull together about 500 pounds of supplies, including food, medicine, and diapers. He said two of his planes will fly to Jamaica on Thursday morning. He said first, they’ll make a stop in Miami to pick up recording artist Shaggy, a Jamaican American who has a charitable organization.
“He is going to go into the devastation area and actually play a very personal role,” Newlin said. “He plans on staying there. I’m going to be doing the transporting of goods, so I’ll be coming back here and then go back while he actually works his way into the area that has the most destruction.”
Newlin said he has a strong connection to Jamaica himself and has been working with an organization that helps kids needing heart surgery on the island for the last five years.
He said for this mission, it will probably be three to five flights to bring all of the supplies they’ve gathered.
Other organizations and individuals in Central Florida spent Wednesday stepping up too. Including Kissimmee vice mayor Angela Eady, who brought together a task force of groups wanting to help at Solid Rock Community Church on Wednesday night.
She said her own experience after a hurricane compelled her to help.
“I know every feeling that every single parent that’s over on that island that has children to take care of that they don’t know how they’re going to eat tomorrow, I was there,” Eady said.
Their task force is still in the early stages, but she said they will be collecting supplies and donations at Solid Rock Church.
“Anything that you’re willing to give, whether it’s your time, your talent, or your treasure, which is your finances, we will accept,” She said.
As far as what supplies they’ll be collecting, the church said to keep an eye out for updates on their website here.
People across the northern Caribbean were digging out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa Thursday as deaths from the catastrophic storm climbed and it made it moved over the Bahamas.
The rumble of large machinery, whine of chainsaws and chopping of machetes echoed throughout southeast Jamaica as government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach isolated communities that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record. Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.
Emergency relief flights began landing at Jamaica’s main international airport, which reopened late Wednesday, as crews distributed water, food and other basic supplies.
“The devastation is enormous,” Jamaican Transportation Minister Daryl Vaz said.
An aerial view of destroyed buildings following the passage of Hurricane Melissa, in Black River, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica on Oct. 29, 2025.
RICARDO MAKYN /AFP via Getty Images
Some Jamaicans wondered where they would live.
“I am now homeless, but I have to be hopeful because I have life,” said Sheryl Smith, who lost the roof of her home.
Authorities said they have found at least four bodies in southwest Jamaica.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness said up to 90% of roofs in the southwest coastal community of Black River were destroyed.
“Black River is what you would describe as ground zero,” he said. “The people are still coming to grips with the destruction.”
More than 25,000 people remained crowded into shelters across the western half of Jamaica, with 77% of the island without power.
Haiti hard hit
Melissa also unleashed catastrophic flooding in Haiti, where at least 23 people were reported killed and several others missing, mostly in the country’s southern region.
Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Hurricane Melissa killed at least 20 people in Petit-Goâve, including 10 children. It also damaged more than 160 homes and destroyed 80 others.
Officials warned that 152 disabled people in Haiti’s southern region required emergency food assistance. More than 11,600 people remained sheltered in Haiti because of the storm.
Girl walks through water from Hurricane Melissa in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Oct. 29, 2025.
Guerinault Louis / Anadolu via Getty Images
Cuba cleanup begins
In Cuba, people began to clear blocked roads and highways with heavy equipment and even enlisted the help of the military, which rescued people trapped in isolated communities and at risk from landslides.
No fatalities were reported after the Civil Defense evacuated more than 735,000 people across eastern Cuba. They slowly were starting to return home.
“We are cleaning the streets, clearing the way,” said Yaima Almenares, a physical education teacher from the city of Santiago, as she and other neighbors swept branches and debris from sidewalks and avenues, cutting down fallen tree trunks and removing accumulated trash.
In the more rural areas outside the city of Santiago de Cuba, water remained accumulated in vulnerable homes on Wednesday night as residents returned from their shelters to save beds, mattresses, chairs, tables and fans they had elevated ahead of the storm.
A televised Civil Defense meeting chaired by President Miguel Díaz-Canel did not provide an official estimate of the damage. However, officials from the affected provinces – Santiago, Granma, Holguín, Guantánamo, and Las Tunas – reported losses of roofs, power lines, fiber optic telecommunications cables, cut roads, isolated communities and losses of banana, cassava and coffee plantations.
Officials said the rain was beneficial for the reservoirs and for easing a severe drought in eastern Cuba.
Many communities were still without electricity, internet and telephone service due to downed transformers and power lines.
When Melissa came ashore in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph on Tuesday, it tied strength records for Atlantic hurricanes making landfall, both in wind speed and barometric pressure. It was still a Category 3 hurricane when it made landfall again in eastern Cuba early Wednesday.
Melissa not done yet
A hurricane warning was in effect early Thursday for Bermuda as Melissa began heading that way, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Heavy rains and gusty winds hit the central and southeastern Bahamas early Thursday, the NHC said.
Melissa was a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds near 105 mph and was moving north-northeast at 21 mph, the center added.
“Melissa is expected to pass to the northwest of Bermuda later today and tonight,” the NHC pointed out. ” … Slight strengthening is possible today before weakening likely begins on Friday. Tropical storm conditions will begin on Bermuda later today, with hurricane conditions expected there tonight.”
Thirty-four members of the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team will be in Jamaica beginning Thursday helping officials there recover from the devastation.
Help from Northern Virginia is heading to Jamaica to assist the Caribbean nation after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made landfall this week.
Thirty-four members of the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team will be in Jamaica beginning Thursday helping officials there recover from the devastation.
County officials said they got the call Wednesday from the State Department and will be there for an undetermined amount of time aiding any way they can.
Fairfax County spokesman John Morrison told WTOP the devastation from the hurricane is devastating and there is an exceptional amount of need.
“It looks like that island suffered some catastrophic destruction. So, it’s a widespread need. They have many logistical challenges of roadways and power and communications equipment,” Morrison said.
Dozens of people have died across the western Caribbean islands impacted by the storm and thousands are without power due to the widespread outages and dangerous conditions.
Morrison said the federal government is paying for all the expenses of the deployment and the county has more than adequate personnel, so it won’t be short staffed during the trip.
Plus, this gives county officials training for real-life situations when they’re needed here.
“It’s an honor to be able to represent our country, to go out and help people in their moment of need. I think it’s certainly some of the highlights of my career is being a part of this team,” he said. “We’re sort of used to dealing with natural disasters, whether it’s an earthquake or, in this case, a hurricane, so this is what we train for.”
The Jamaican government said it’s hoping to reopen the island’s airports as early as Thursday to allow emergency supplies to enter the country.
Morrison said the county’s commitment is open-ended, with no set return date on the calendar.
“We will be working with the emergency management authorities on the island of Jamaica in order to be most effective, wherever they need us,” he said. “It’s what our team is made of. Whether it’s a domestic response or an international response, we’re honored to help out.”
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A man walks with a shovel in hand over rubble on Main Street in Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica on October 29, 2025. Hurricane Melissa ripped up trees and knocked out power after making landfall in Jamaica on October 28, 2025 as one of the most powerful hurricanes on record, inundating the island nation with rains that threaten flash floods and landslides.
RICARDO MAKYN
AFP via Getty Images
Hurricane Melissa hit much of Jamaica hard. The country’s all-important tourism industry will likely suffer, too, as damage assessments are made over the coming days.
While it’s too early to know the full impact of Melissa, Montego Bay was underwater on Wednesday and infrastructure was damaged. The city is the home to several resorts and golf courses.
Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the town of New Hope on the southwestern tip of Jamaica. By 8 p.m., it was heading to eastern Cuba.
As of Wednesday evening, Jamaica’s airports remained closed to visitors, including Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay and Ian Fleming International Airport near Ocho Rios and in the northeast of the country. Transport Minister Daryl Vaz, who earlier in the day conducted an assessment of Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport, later indicated that it had received its first flight, one carrying relief supplies.
In a post on X, he also announced that the Kingston airport and Ian Fleming would both open at 7 a.m. Thursday for commercial flights. Montego Bay’s airport can begin receiving relief flights at 10 a.m., however Vaz said the resumption of commercial flights there has yet to be determined. Sections of one of that airport’s concourses had significant damage, he said in other postings.
Jamaica last year welcomed nearly 5 million tourists, and raked in $4.3 billion. While some visit the capital, many prefer the rural reaches of the country, areas that have been hard-hit by the storm.
“Tourism has been impacted negatively,” Dennis Zulu, the United Nations resident coordinator in Jamaica, who also covers the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos, told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. “We’re obviously going to see reduced arrivals, because the facilities, the resorts that were accommodating tourists, have been affected.”
Assessments of Melissa’s destruction are just starting. But local reports show hotels flooded or severely damaged, which could have long-term effects. Meanwhile, significant portions of the country are without power, and roads are being blocked by downed power lines, fallen trees and storm debris.
With large swaths of the country affected by Melissa, Zulu said, it’s going to take time before those facilities are restored.
Earlier this month, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett launched new visitor targets for the country, visiting the United Kingdom and New York where he marketed the island. Now, the country can expect to see a reduction in tourism, Zulu said.
A foreign exchange earner for the country, the tourism industry was still bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the country’s tourism leaders are posting travel alerts on resorts, transportation and safety.
Hurricane Melissa ripped up trees and knocked out power after making landfall in Jamaica on October 29, 2025 as one of the most powerful hurricanes on record, inundating the island nation with rains that threaten flash floods and landslides. RICARDO MAKYN AFP via Getty Images
South Florida cruise lines affected
Cruise travel also has been affected by Melissa’s devastating winds and rains. Montego Bay and Ocho Rios have ports that are important stops for ships sailing from South Florida.
On Wednesday, Carnival Corp. said it was evaluating the impact of Melissa.
“It is too early to make any decisions,” the company said in a statement. “There needs to be an assessment of the ports, the waterways and the surrounding infrastructure.”
The Doral-based company said it will “coordinate with government officials at the appropriate time.”
Miami-based Royal Caribbean hadn’t made any decisions either for the same reasons.
Norwegian Cruise Line in Miami made two immediate changes. Norwegian Joy’s current voyage will no longer stop in Montego Bay, as planned, a spokesperson said. It will instead make an overnight call to Cozumel, Mexico. Norwegian Prima’s Nov. 2 voyage will also skip Montego Bay and instead go to Nassau.
Airports and flights
Vaz on Wednesday said he conducted an aerial tour of Norman Manley International Airport and a walk-through of that airport, and that “there is no significant damage.” He also said the Palisadoes strip that leads to the airport “shows no issues or damage.”
Even as Vaz announced the resumption of commercial flights, it’s unclear if they will be packed with tourists or people traveling back home to check on friends and relatives — or if they’ll be outnumbered by planes with aid.
Elizabeth Riley, the executive director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, said on Wednesday that she’s received indications that relief flights will be given priority once the main international airport in the capital reopens.
“We already have an indication that when the Norman Manley airport reopens, the priority that will be given, is to humanitarian flights in the first instance and not commercial flights,” she said. “We are part of coordinating that with the government of Jamaica.”
On Wednesday, American Airlines continued to suspend flights in and out of Montego Bay, Kingston and Ian Fleming International Airport.
“We’re still awaiting results from the damage assessment at the airports,” an airline spokesperson told the Miami Herald. “We’ll resume service once it’s safe to do so.”
American on Wednesday also suspended flights to and from Holguin, Cuba, Santiago de Cuba Antonio Maceo Airport and Providenciales Airport, which serves the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Delta Air Lines suspended flights in and out of Montego Bay, Kingston and Turks and Caicos. “We will resume service as soon as safely possible.”
That could take some time for Jamaica, particularly for one of its major tourist destinations. The mayor of Montego Bay, Richard Vernon, said his airport had been “badly damaged.” In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, he said, “I foresee it being in a state of lockdown for a few days before we’re able to start moving people around.”
In a small piece of good news, he said the Montego Bay Convention Center, reserved as a hurricane shelter, only got three calls from tourists, all of whom ended up staying put in their accommodations.
The center “was not used which tells me that the tourists were in good hands” at their hotels, the mayor said.
Still, Vernon indicated the amount of work that lies ahead.
“Major roadways have been inundated by floodwaters, we have no power, the utilities are damaged and telecommunications is down.”
A Church with sections of its roof damage is seen damage following the passage of Hurricane Melissa, outside Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth, Jamaica on October 29, 2025. Hurricane Melissa ripped up trees and knocked out power after making landfall in Jamaica on October 28, 2025, as one of the most powerful hurricanes on record, inundating the island nation with rains that threaten flash floods and landslides. RICARDO MAKYN AFP via Getty Images
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 8:27 PM.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall over eastern Cuba near the city of Chivirico early Wednesday as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said, after pummeling Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record.
Melissa was hitting eastern Cuba with “damaging winds, flooding rains, and dangerous storm surge,” the center said.
Some 735,000 people were evacuated ahead of the storm, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said Tuesday night.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas as well as the southeastern and central Bahamas.
Melissa had top sustained winds of 120 mph when it got to Cuba but they were down to 115 mph when the NHC issued its 5 a.m. EDT advisory. A hurricanes is considered major when it’s a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, with winds of at least 111 mph.
The storm was speeding up a bit, moving northeast at 12 mph, according to the hurricane center and its core was about 60 miles west of Guantánamo, Cuba and 230 miles south of the central Bahamas.
A satellite eye’s view shows Hurricane Melissa blanketing eastern Cuba at 5:20 a.m. EDT on Oct. 29, 2025.
NOAA / National Hurricane Center
The agency warned residents of Cuba to remain sheltered and that preparations for the storm in the Bahamas “should be rushed to completion.”
Melissa was forecast to weaken as it crosses Cuba through the morning but remain a powerful hurricane as it moves across the southeastern or central Bahamas later Wednesday. The storm is then expected to make its way late Thursday near or to the west of Bermuda, where a hurricane watch is in effect. The NHC said Melissa is likely to still be a strong hurricane at that point.
The continuing intense rain could cause life-threatening flooding with numerous landslides, U.S. forecasters said.
Melissa struck Jamaica Tuesday with top sustained winds of 185 mph.
The storm was expected to generate a storm surge of up to 12 feet in the region and drop up to 20 inches of rain on parts of eastern Cuba.
“Numerous landslides are likely in those areas,” said NHC director Michael Brennan.
The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s severe economic crisis, which already has led to prolonged power blackouts, fuel shortages and food shortages.
“There will be a lot of work to do. We know there will be a lot of damage,” Díaz-Canel said in a televised address in which he assured that “no one is left behind and no resources are spared to protect the lives of the population.”
At the same time, he urged the population not to underestimate the power of Melissa, “the strongest ever to hit national territory.”
Provinces from Guantánamo – in the far east – to Camagüey, almost in the center of elongated Cuba, had already suspended classes on Monday.
Jamaica set to get a look at damage Melissa left behind
As Cuba prepared for the storm, officials in Jamaica prepared to fan out Wednesday to assess the damage.
Extensive damage was reported in parts of Clarendon in southern Jamaica and in the southwestern parish of St. Elizabeth, which was “under water,” said Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council.
The storm also damaged four hospitals and left one without power, forcing officials to evacuate 75 patients, McKenzie said.
More than half a million customers were without power as of late Tuesday as officials reported that most of the island experienced downed trees, power lines and extensive flooding.
The government said it hopes to reopen all of Jamaica’s airports as early as Thursday to ensure the quick distribution of emergency relief supplies.
The storm already was blamed for seven deaths in the Caribbean, including three in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.
