Relief supplies began reaching thousands of St Thomas residents who have been marooned since Thursday after being hit by fierce winds and torrential rains from the outer bands of Hurricane Dennis, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) said yesterday.

The disaster management agency also said it would today begin airlifting stranded residents out of Cascade, a small district near the borders of St Andrew and Portland in the Blue Mountain range.

A section of the main road at 11 Miles, Bull Bay which was severely damaged by flood water from Hurricane Dennis. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

ODPEM said it had delivered supplies to Clarendon, St Catherine and St Ann over the last few days, then turned its attention yesterday to the eastern parishes of St Thomas, Portland, St Mary and "other areas that have been cut off".

According to Dr Barbara Carby, the head of ODPEM, yesterday's trips had been pushed back to give priority to medical airlifts being conducted by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).

"There were two instances involving pregnant women and another involving a man with a broken leg," she said late yesterday.

Huge boulders and silt deposited along the Eleven Miles main road in Bull Bay. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

"There were individual flights because the persons were in different sections of the parish, so individual flights had to be made. So the food flights were delayed. But at least one should have gone off this evening."

The lack of food was the biggest problem for parish residents, said Opposition Leader Bruce Golding, fresh from a tour of St Thomas yesterday afternoon.

"The most urgent need now is food," he told the Sunday Observer. "The shops are completely empty and supplies will have to be flown in."

JDF soldiers unload relief supplies ahead of yesterday's flights to St Thomas and other sections of the island that have been cut off since Hurricane Dennis' passage on Thursday. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

ODPEM's supplies should be beefed up today with the arrival of a 9:00 am flight transporting 10 tons of relief items, including blankets, mats for sitting, water containers and bottled water from Venezuela. Cuba, before being battered itself by Hurricane Dennis, had sent 11 tons of food items on Friday.

But there have been problems getting supplies into areas, like St Thomas, where there has been significant damage to the roads.

The Government will decide, after today's tour of the parishes most badly affected by the passage of Hurricane Dennis, which sections of the island, if any, will be declared disaster areas.

These houses in the Kennedy Grove community in Clarendon were still under water yesterday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

The list may likely include sections of western St Thomas and Portland, which have been among the areas most badly affected as the storm passed by the island's north-eastern coastline last Thursday.

After a tour of these two parishes yesterday, Transport and Works Minister Robert Pickersgill told the Sunday Observer that some sections "may well be called disaster areas".
Golding said from his initial visit to St Thomas, the damage to roads was much worse than that caused by Hurricane Ivan last September.

"The most devastating damage is to the roads and bridges. Some areas are completely cut off, and will be for quite a while," he said.

The fear is that sections of St Thomas will not be accessible to vehicular traffic any time soon. The eastern parish had been getting rains even before Thursday when the situation deteriorated sharply.

"There are a number of sick individuals who have been marooned in the Trinityville Division and the Cedar Valley Division, in some cases for six days because they have been cut off from Monday when they have been having heavy rains," James Robertson, the member of parliament for West St Thomas, said yesterday.

Robertson said residents of Hagley Gap and Pen Line had not been able to get out, and no assistance had reached them up to the time he was speaking yesterday morning.

He estimated that 10,000 people had been stranded in the Trinityville and Cedar Valley divisions. Of that number, he said, about 4,000 had initially been directly affected as the storm passed near the island. Up to yesterday, about 1,000 persons still remained in shelters, he said.

Over in Clarendon, the MP for the south eastern section of the parish, Ruddy Spencer, estimated that more than 500 persons were still housed in shelters across the parish up to Friday night.
"In Rocky settlement, a number of people are cut off by water," he said.

"In Gayle, all those people are flooded out and the community of Longwood is cut off because the Alley Bridge and part of the roadway have been cut off."

Spencer said other problem spots in the parish included Kennedy Grove in Palmers Cross, where a number of houses were still covered by water; and Chateau, where five families had to be temporarily relocated after their homes were flooded.

"They were moved out Thursday night and are still not yet back home," he said yesterday. "In Halse Hall, we had to open a shelter because some 35 houses in and around a sink hole were totally flooded out - the water was up to shoulder height."
The Halse Hall Basic School was being used as a shelter for more than 100 people, he said. There were also problems in several other communities.

"In Lionel Town, the area was flooded out badly. In Mitchell Town, the entire area is under water and on one street we had to use a boat on the road," Spencer said.

"In Portland Cottage (which took a severe battering from Hurricane Ivan last September), every street is covered with water. We have opened three shelters there, housing almost 350 persons," Spencer added.

The fear factor

Feeding the multitude

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