Survivors speak out as Melissa wipes out Westmoreland communities
Published:Tuesday | November 4, 2025 | 9:14 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Where vibrant communities once stood in Westmoreland, Hurricane Melissa has left behind a skeletal, unrecognisable landscape. The Category 5 storm stripped the parish of its landmarks and claimed dozens of lives during its passage on October 27 and 28.
Century-old buildings were splintered to their foundations, and the familiar topography – hills, trees, and homes – was flattened. Uprooted trees, fallen power lines, and scattered debris choked the main road from Whitehouse to Savanna-la-Mar, slowing traffic to a crawl and creating gridlock in the capital.
Across the hillsides, scenes of ruin stretched endlessly: collapsed houses, ruined furniture, and waterlogged clothing lay exposed under the fading sun. Displaced residents sifted through the wreckage, speechless at the scale of their loss.
Families, including young children, turned to rivers and the sea for water, filling buckets and bottles to meet basic needs. Long queues formed outside the few half-opened shops that survived, offering scarce food and supplies. Water was the most precious commodity, with residents begging passing motorists for even a sip.
Near Ferris, residents gathered at a gas station, some sending out calls while others tried to connect to an open Starlink account.
“We hear seh signal out here. So a it you see we a try call we family fi make them know we alright,” one woman told The Gleaner.
Another spoke of tragedy: Nettesha Cummings, a local woman, died after being struck by a sheet of zinc while running from her roofless home to a neighbour’s during the storm. She reportedly bled to death before help arrived. Her mother, Patricia Dillon, still in shock, confirmed the loss.
“This storm was no normal storm. A dangerous, dangerous thing this that happen inside here,” Christopher Smith, of Dean’s Valley, told The Gleaner.
He called for “serious assistance” for his community, where board houses were flattened and even concrete structures lost their roofs.
In Belmont, dozens of people remained at a shelter at Belmont Academy, itself partly destroyed. Roofs of classrooms were peeled back, furniture drenched, and debris littered every walkway.
Amid the wreckage, 86-year-old Carlton Brown quietly spread a soaked bedsheet across a wall to dry.
He and his family – his wife, daughter, and two grandsons – had taken shelter there after government warnings.
“After the storm, we go back deh go see everything flat. We lose everything,” Brown said. “The only thing I have left is the big, black plastic tank. It wipe out everything ... . Real terrible.”
Brown’s home in Auchindown is gone. He hopes his daughters in the United States will send help once they learn he and the others are safe. For now, he depends on government relief.
“We need to hear from the outside world. We not hearing anything. The battery for the flashlight we have finish, and when night come, over here dark. Me always have me tea, and now me cannot have any at all. So we would like a likkle help over here,” he said, while adding that he had been treated well by the shelter managers.
At the same shelter, 76-year-old Despie Pinnock sat nursing an open wound on her shoulder. She was rescued by a good Samaritan after her home in Farm district collapsed during the hurricane.
“The housetop come down on me and do me shoulder so,” she said.
“A nine children me have, but the last one die. Them wouldn’t even give me what dog don’t want. That’s why I’m here. So I know that I going to need some help,” the woman said, when asked about her next move.