Emergency relief efforts were underway Thursday in the northern Caribbean islands hardest hit by the hurricane, including Cuba and Haiti. <\/p>\n
Melissa destroyed homes, washed away roads, and left thousands without power. Catastrophic flooding claimed at least 30 lives in Haiti, officials said. <\/p>\n
![\"Residents](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/QYNMJIYCXVFF7GT7N3BQ4KHEF4.jpg\")
Residents in El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba province, Cuba, recovered their belongings on Thursday after Hurricane Melissa passed.YAMIL LAGE\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
At least 14 people have died in Jamaica, and police said they expected the death toll to keep rising.<\/p>\n
According to Sharman, she and her team spent Wednesday trying to get in touch with those in need to formulate a relief plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was about accessing communities, because that\u2019s the biggest issue. We\u2019ve got a bigger team coming in with more supplies to help once we\u2019re into the affected areas,\u201d Sharman explained. \u201cAnd that\u2019s also when we\u2019ll start doing things like debris removal, clearing mud and water.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still very early in the process, it\u2019s still very much an active situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kingston, which is located on Jamaica\u2019s southeastern coast, avoided the worst of the storm\u2019s disastrous effects. But many people there have homes or families on other parts of the island and are unable to establish consistent communication with them, Sharman explained. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest fear at the moment is the fear of the unknown \u2026 people don\u2019t know what situation their family is in, or what they might go home to. It\u2019s quite heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Jamaican community in Cape Cod, their fear was felt by Pastor David Brown, founder and leader of Emmanuel Faith Ministries in Truro.<\/p>\n
A day after the hurricane hit Jamaica, Brown, who is also Jamaican, launched a GoFundMe to provide direct relief to hurricane victims after members of his congregation expressed hopelessness. <\/p>\n
Most members of Emmanuel Faith Ministries are Jamaicans who work in the service and hospitality industry on the Cape, Brown said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Many came to him on Tuesday for emotional support. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome people haven\u2019t even heard from their family. They [community members] come to me and say \u2018My house, my family, it\u2019s all gone,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cCan you imagine how painful that is?\u201d <\/p>\n
Brown said the church is trying to raise as much money as possible to help victims when \u201cthe reality hits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when the pain really begins because having nowhere to sleep, no food, all shops are down, health centers are down, farms are destroyed,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be even worse.\u201d <\/p>\n
As of Thursday evening, more than $10,000 had been raised, according to the site. Brown plans to communicate with a friend in Jamaica to help distribute the money for clothing, food, and shelter in the aftermath of the hurricane. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will do whatever we can,\u201d Brown said. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere in Massachusetts, For A Better Jamaica<\/a>, a Worcester-based nonprofit, is raising money for disaster relief. <\/p>\n \u201cWe want to give people tangible ways to help in Jamaica,\u201d said Bridgette Hylton, an official with the nonprofit. <\/b>\u201c… to rally some support for this place that\u2019s very special to us and dear to our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n For A Better Jamaica is supported by people from the island who have settled in the Worcester area. Over time, they\u2019ve provided support for schools on the island, Hylton said. <\/p>\n The Jamaican community in Massachusetts is watching for updates on recovery efforts on the island. <\/p>\n \u201cWe know there [are] still people unaccounted for, a lot of people haven\u2019t heard from folks,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n But that\u2019s why \u201cit was very important for us to do something,\u201d she explained. And donations have already started to pour in, not just in Worcester but around the state.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re grateful to everyone that\u2019s contributed. People have been very generous,\u201d Hylton said.<\/p>\n Rita Chandler can be reached at rita.chandler@globe.com<\/a>. Camille Bugayong can be reached at camille.bugayong@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe arrive as soon as we can, and as long as we have the capacity, we\u2019ll stay as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":347256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[170421,170424,57214,34659,7922,746,8071,1005,166184,1612,2702,3092,170422,170423,159,67,132,68,313],"class_list":{"0":"post-347255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-accidents-and-disasters","9":"tag-belongings","10":"tag-cuba","11":"tag-damaged","12":"tag-destruction","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-extreme-weather","15":"tag-horizontal","16":"tag-hurricane-melissa","17":"tag-latin-america","18":"tag-natural-disaster","19":"tag-photography","20":"tag-santiago-de-cuba","21":"tag-santiago-de-cuba-province","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115472762629804217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}