MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica — Leniecia “Len” Ricketts and Marva Cross returned to work at a family home in western Jamaica about six days after Hurricane Melissa destroyed their homes in the parishes of St. James and St. Elizabeth.
Ricketts, who works as a nanny, told her employer in Montego Bay that she was living in what used to be her open-air porch in Montpelier, a hillside village about six miles from Montego Bay.
Ricketts said the hurricane gutted the home she shares with her cousin. She said they were wet and couldn’t sleep while the force of the winds struck. Mud and water covered everything they owned.
“When everything calmed down, people started looking for each other with flashlights,” Ricketts told her employer, Shari Munroe, adding that she was worried about a retired senior who lost everything.
Jamaican ministers announced on Monday afternoon that the official death toll of the Category 5 hurricane that made landfall on Oct. 28 was at 32 and increasing as accessibility improved.
“I am living on my veranda. I cook there. I sleep there and try to clean the rest ... the best I can, but it’s not completely clean -- not even halfway -- but I am trying,” Ricketts told Munroe.
Cross, who works as a housekeeper, is a mother of seven. She had been with her family in the hard-hit St. Elizabeth parish when she arrived at work, “got into the doorway” and “collapsed with relief and grief,” according to Munroe.
Cross told Munroe the hurricane brought in “dirty, muddy water” and flooded everything in their home and neighborhood. She said she and others had to get into trucks to get to Montego Bay.
“Everything is gone,” Cross told Munroe.
Whatever was left after the storm was in debris fires. Without power or running water, Ricketts and Cross said children and adults needed basics such as clothes, shoes, food, and batteries.
Watch some of Munroe’s interview with Ricketts
Watch some of Munroe’s interview with Cross
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More on hurricane coverage
- Here is how to help from South Florida
- Jamaica rushes to prepare for peak tourism season as it digs out from Hurricane Melissa
- Hurricane Melissa’s death toll in Jamaica increases to 32, officials say
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