“Roofs will be tested. Flood water will rise. Isolation will become a harsh reality for many,” said Necephor Mghendi, head of the International Federation’s delegation for the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.
‘Total structural failure’
“Total structural failure is likely,” said Anne-Claire Fontan, a tropical cyclone specialist at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), citing the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.
“I have never seen this ruling before… it is a massive impact it is expected to have in Jamaica,” he said.
Sustained winds of 280 kilometers per hour have been reported as the system moves west towards Jamaica on Tuesday morning. Heavy rains continue in the region and deaths have already been reported in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
Fontan explained that the system will bring three times the normal amount of precipitation for a rainy month in Jamaica, or up to 700 millimeters (27.5 inches).
Catastrophic flash floods and landslides
“This means there will be catastrophic flash floods and numerous landslides,” he explained. “In addition to the rain and destructive wind, storm surges between three and four meters high, as well as destructive waves, are also expected to occur along the southern coast of Jamaica.”
Speaking from Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, the International Federation’s Mr Mghendi said that while Melissa is moving at a very slow speed (approximately six kilometers per hour), the “extreme” rain and winds are expected to cause “extensive damage to infrastructure, isolating communities and cutting essential services for days, if not weeks”.
“The humanitarian threat is serious and immediate,” he said.
Many families are still rebuilding from the impacts of Beryl last year and reestablishing their livelihoods.
Reconstruction from Beryl, annihilated
“Melissa now threatens the same communities and perhaps all activities will be eliminated,” he warned. “This is an example of how… extreme weather events can actually cause shocks to communities and expand capacities to resist them,” he explained.
The IFRC official stressed that coastal communities continue to face financial difficulties and that informal settlements are at risk of intense winds and soils that are already saturated by the rainy season, with a “higher probability of landslides.”
“The first order of business is to save as many lives as possible in this case,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), explaining that it is “why we are seeing evacuations, construction of shelters… advice is being given.”
Mghendi of the International Federation said that in Jamaica authorities have prepared about 800 shelters and that volunteers are supporting evacuations, helping to distribute relief items and reinforcing early warning messages.
Extensive preparation by UN agencies
OCHA spokesperson Mr. Laerke added that a UN-facilitated pre-emption mechanism has been activated in Cuba and Haiti, which are in the path of the hurricane, prompting an allocation of $4 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to pre-position food, water, hygiene items and health supplies.
“What will be people’s basic survival needs? Food, drinking water…shelter and of course medical care,” he said, explaining that when massive flooding occurs, drinking water becomes scarce, leading to increased epidemic and health risks.
When asked about the availability of relief items, Mr. Mghendi of the International Federation said that enough supplies had been stocked within Jamaica itself to provide immediate assistance to about 800 households. Beyond this, supplies for 60,000 homes can be delivered to Jamaica and other countries such as the Bahamas “in four hours,” he said.
The world must come together
“After we release them, they will need to be replaced and that is where we hope for global solidarity,” Mghendi insisted.
“In events like this, the world comes together and we anticipate that this will be the case. This is one of the storms of the century and I believe that the global community will come together to respond collectively,” he concluded.