CLARENDON, Jamaica — As Tropical Storm Rafael passes over the country, the manager for the Rocky Point Community Centre, which is being used as a shelter in Clarendon, is appealing for support to help displaced residents.

Observer Online understands that the facility is currently flooded and there are limited cleaning supplies to properly cater to the seven residents, including a child, who went to the location for safety.

“A lot of water is inside of the shelter. The door is still open for those persons who wanted to come. But we are trying our best to see how we can sop up the water that’s inside and keep the place dry as much as possible,”  Althea Brown, the centre’s manager,  said. “We don’t have any disinfectant, but whatever we have, we’re trying to keep the place clean in case.”

Brown said that some of the residents who were affected by Hurricane Beryl in July have returned to the shelter for refuge.

“Remember some of them would have left… only four [had remained]. But some of those who were here returned based on water coming into their houses,” she noted.

Shanique Brown, who sought shelter at the facility due to flooding, told Observer Online that “where I’m at is flat, so I have to come back by the shelter.”

The facility manager also shared that her team is limited in the care they can provide due to the absence of electricity and cooking gas.

“… if we did have gas, we woulda cook up a storm and boil little breakfast. Mi send go get coal way down the road to look bout something to eat.

We nuh have no gas here generally. We nuh have no light, but we have some little lantern that we got from before, so we just gwaan use them. We a watch fi see what really a take place,” she detailed.

—     Oneil Madden