A Jamaican Town Decimated: Black River’s Heartbreaking Struggle After Hurricane Melissa

The very heart of Black River — its courthouse, library, schools, and bustling downtown shopping district — has been utterly erased. Even the roofs of most homes are gone, casualties of the most devastating hurricane to ever strike Jamaica.

Along Jamaica’s southern coast, scarcely a single building in Black River stands whole. This town’s profound destruction serves as a somber symbol of the widespread suffering and immense rebuilding challenge now facing countless communities across the island.

Father Thomas Ngigi, a Kenyan priest stationed at St. Theresa’s parish in Black River, found solace in the meager shade of what little remained of his church, counting his blessings amidst the ruins.

Hurricane Melissa ripped the roof clean off the church, obliterating all the pews and nearly everything else inside. Yet, miraculously, the crucifix, the tabernacle—the sacred box holding the Holy Eucharist—and a cherished statue of the patron saint remained untouched. With his rectory in shambles and essential diabetes medications swept away, he could only lay his clothes and religious texts out to dry under the sun.

St. Theresa’s, once a proud waterfront church among a grand promenade of historic buildings, now stands amidst a landscape of utter devastation.

“At night, people arrive, asking if they can seek shelter here,” Father Ngigi recounted. “I have to tell them the entire place has been blown apart.”

A local homeless man, whose T-shirt declared him a “security guard” in handwritten letters, offers the priest companionship. The church’s groundskeeper, who himself escaped from the rubble of another building on the property by digging his way out, now cycles through the wreckage in search of food to bring back.

Last week, Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica as a monstrous Category 5 storm, claiming at least 32 lives and flattening an untold number of buildings and homes. Among the casualties, at least one unidentified victim washed ashore in Black River.

Vast stretches of the country remain without electricity as authorities desperately work to clear roads and reach isolated communities.

Black River, a town of approximately 5,000 people and the capital of St. Elizabeth Parish in southwestern Jamaica, bore the brunt of the storm’s fury.

Once a proud hub for shrimp and freshwater fisheries, Black River famously had one of the first electrified homes in the world in 1893, predating many parts of the United States. However, even that historic waterfront house on High Street, known more recently as the Waterloo guesthouse, just a short stroll from St. Theresa’s, was completely erased by the colossal storm.

Amidst the widespread destruction, the local Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise managed to withstand the storm’s wrath surprisingly well.

Even structures that somehow retained their roofs are now submerged in thick mud. The entire town has mobilized for a massive cleanup effort.

After several harrowing days marked by desperation and widespread looting, Black River is diligently working to piece itself back together. Power is out, communication lines are down, and food supplies are dwindling, but the distribution of aid has begun, sparking a tangible sense of a community determined to rise from an extraordinary catastrophe.

Firefighters painstakingly carried buckets of mud from the first floor of the firehouse, which was engulfed by 16 feet of water.

“To clean this? This is definitely not a one-day operation,” remarked Kimar Brooks, the fire superintendent. “Ninety percent of our citizens are displaced.”

Many police officers, firefighters, nurses, and doctors in town have yet to return home to inspect their own properties, assuming that little, if anything, remains.

“Our staff change and shower here in their vehicles because they simply have no other place to go,” explained Dr. Robert Powell, an emergency room physician at Black River Hospital.

The hospital’s roof was torn off, and most patients were evacuated. Still, more continue to arrive, injured from falls off ladders or rescued from collapsed homes.

With her home obliterated, Andrea Montaque shared that she and at least five family members are now spending their nights in a compact Nissan Tiida, parked outside the wreckage of their former house. “I’m traumatized,” she confessed.

The wooden house next door completely imploded into a massive heap of splintered wood, tragically killing one resident. Ivan Joseph, who also lived there, miraculously escaped with his life. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” he lamented.

The Auglo Senior Living home across the street suffered such extensive damage that 13 of its residents were forced to cram into a single room, the only area in the entire facility that still offered a roof over their heads.

At the police station, an inspector sat outside in the scorching heat, meticulously recording incidents in the “big book,” a massive ledger also known as the station diary. Most people arrived on foot to report lost vehicles, hoping for insurance compensation.

Serena Edwards came to report her mother missing. Her mother’s house collapsed during the storm, but a neighbor witnessed Ms. Edwards’s mother fleeing the flying debris into the torrential rain.

“My gut feeling is that she’s alive,” she declared, heading off to search the government-opened shelters that were activated as the storm approached.

It appeared some people mistakenly believed the local high school was one of these shelters.

Oliver Taylor, 52, the school’s security guard, grappled with what to do about an elderly woman with dementia who someone had left there overnight on Saturday, likely thinking it was a safe haven. The disoriented woman sat alone on a mattress in an empty classroom.

She wasn’t the only one finding refuge at Black River High School; Mr. Taylor himself, having lost his own home, was also living there.

“This felt like a tsunami,” Mr. Taylor said, as volunteers from an ambulance service checked his blood pressure and tended to his foot, which was pierced by a nail through his Crocs.

“This is going to take a long, long while.”

Camille Williams contributed reporting from Kingston, Jamaica.