AS she rushed from room to room assisting her four adult children — all of whom are wheelchair-bound — Vera Brown, wincing from the sharp pain in her back, prayed earnestly as Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica.

With winds as strong as 185 miles per hour, the Category 5 hurricane ripped sections of the roof off her house in Royal Palm near Runaway Bay, St Ann, last Tuesday. While the houses around her were flattened, Brown lifted her hands in praise and gratitude, thankful that she still has a place to call home.

“I run here so and I go around and go around [to where] they were in the house, and I pick them up and carry them. My pickney them important to me. You see the roof, when you can put up back a roof, you can’t get back a life, so I am here for them. I am a single mother. It is just me alone and I don’t want [to] see anything happen to them,” she told the Jamaica Observer last Thursday when the team visited the community.

“I don’t know where I get the strength to lift them up, but I [found] it because I have to…All when the breeze blow and I [saw] pieces of the zinc blow off, I just pray and say to God, ‘Don’t make my roof gone.’ The whole night me a fret,” she recalled, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep.

Brown explained that when her children were between 15 and 17 years old they all started experiencing weakness in their joints and muscles, which made it difficult for them to walk. However, despite multiple visits to hospitals and health centres in St Ann and Kingston, and thousands of dollars spent on tests, doctors could not provide a diagnosis. Now in their late 30s and early 40s, they’ve given up on getting answers to what’s causing their condition.

To help them move around on their own, Brown, with the assistance of relatives who are overseas, purchased wheelchairs for them, but it is still difficult for them to manoeuvre small spaces. The 65-year-old, who is unemployed, also relies on family members to provide for her adult children.

“Because I have to lift them, it gives me terrible [back] pain. Sometimes I can hardly manage them. It pressures me a whole lot, because I have to take them to the bathroom, I have to bathe them [because they are] my children,” she told the Sunday Observer, while holding her back.

Brown’s daughter, Norneth Jarrett, said for years she has watched her mother struggle to provide for her and her siblings. As the rain poured and the wind blew last Tuesday, she said she feared for the safety of her family, given their vulnerability.

“It was very devastating, and I was nervous and frightened because I’ve never been through something like this before. I’ve been through Hurricane Gilbert, but it wasn’t anything like this. This one was very traumatising. I was around my mother’s side [of the house], and I decided to come around [to the other side of the house], and it’s after I come around is there so everything start.

“Eventually, everybody else had to come around this side [of the house] because the roof around [my mother’s side] did gone, and we had some heavy breeze,” she recalled, staring into the distance as she seemingly relived the dreadful day.

“I have a physical challenge, so that made me scared even more. [While] other persons can move around and are quicker to escape…it will be more difficult for us because my mom cannot manage it, and it’s just my mom and our brother-in-law, so you know that it’s more difficult,” she said, suppressing tears.

Norneth said, over the years, watching her mother struggle has been hard, but it was even more difficult to witness as the family rode out the catastrophic weather system.

“It’s a real challenge for her, because even right now, there are times when she complains about a lot of pain. Sometimes, all when we know she is complaining about the pain and we feel it, we can’t make her know because she is 65 years old and it’s four of us and she is alone. We don’t want her to worry about us any more than she has to,” said Norneth.

Amoy Jarrett said the hurricane was particularly frightening for her five-year-old son, who clung to her all night. She said all his books and school supplies were damaged.

“It was just lone panic. To tell you the truth, this is the first time I have ever witnessed something like that. My little son just hold on pon me and him a scream, ‘Mommy! Mommy! Don’t make it carry me away!’ What we witnessed was terrible, terrible. We just had to ask God to take us through the storm, and then everything was over,” she told the Sunday Observer.

With the structure of their home still standing, the eldest son Kenroy Jarrett said he’s giving God thanks for taking them through safely, when many other Jamaicans did not make it.

Up to Saturday, the official count for the number of lives Hurricane Melissa had claimed in Jamaica stood at 19. Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing with reports of bodies in remote areas that could lead to an increase in the death toll.

“It’s just the mercy of God save us. We still deh here alive and well, and we have to just give God thanks for everything,” said Kenroy, a small smile of gratitude on his face.

“It was right here that I sat and saw what happened over the neighbour yard, and then I saw a tree drop and burst the house top around there. I see the house top fly off, the trees came down [in the community], and I said, ‘God good to only [make] this happen to [us],’ because if you take a look around, it’s a board house we’re in, and is only our board house in the middle here that stood up. God is good to me because if God never good to us, serious things would happen to [us],” he said.

Like many others, the family is now appealing for any assistance possible.

“I would like if we could get some help because we would really appreciate it with our losses to have some clothes and some stuff for the kids and nails and things to make back the roof,” Kenroy appealed.

Wheelchair-bound Norneth Jarrett recounts her experience during the passage of Hurricane Melissa last Tuesday.

Amoy Jarrett, one of Vera Brown’s wheelchair-bound adult children, and her seven-year-old son Tayshawn Williams.

A section of Vera Brown’s roof at her home in Royal Palm, St Ann, was taken by the harsh winds of Hurricane Melissa.

Vera Brown, who struggles with back pain, holds a section of her lower back while speaking to the Jamaica Observer team in her St Ann community last Thursday.