NEW HOLLAND, St Elizabeth — Kimesha Morris was still in shock Thursday as she stood in the ruins of her family home here.

“It never pretty, it wasn’t pretty, because literally we had to run out. When we see the first zinc lift we have to run out and seek shelter next door,” Morris told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday, two days after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa’s deadly rampage across St Elizabeth and other parishes on Jamaica’s southern and northern coasts.

Morris lived in the house with the father of her children and their three kids.

“The children lose everything. When we say everything, dem lose everything,” she said, glancing at the muddy remains of their belongings.

She described Hurricane Melissa as the most devastating storm she has ever experienced.

“We did a expect it, enuh, but we never did a expect seh it woulda so worse because we a say probably a something like Beryl,” a distressed Morris said.

Her reference was to Hurricane Beryl which inflicted enormous damage on St Elizabeth when it sideswiped Jamaica in July 2024.

When asked if she had considered going to an official shelter, Morris admitted that she underestimated the storm until it was too late.

“When we start see the zinc a lift now, we have to literally run out a di house in the rain and breeze,” she recalled.

She said she hesitated to step out into the heavy rain but when the winds showed no sign of calming, she grabbed her daughter and ran.

“One a di time we haffi literally stand up inna it until mi catch back miself and mi say ‘Alright den, ova deh so,’ ” she said, pointing toward her neighbour’s now-damaged house where she and her family sought shelter.

Since the hurricane Morris said she has been unable to reach anyone or receive any calls.

Now, she is appealing for assistance to rebuild — and this time she plans to construct a stronger home.

“Mi a look some block, cement, and steel and so forth so I can put up a concrete structure,” she explained.

Her children’s father, Kevin Simpson, said the storm was unlike anything he’s ever seen.

“It’s the wickedest storm we ever experience. The storm take up the tree dem and spin dem inna the air and drop dem. It carry tornado inna it,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“The storm move like it have life in it. When the storm a reach the housetop and the housetop nah lift, it take it from the foundation and take it fling it weh,” he said, while admitting that during the storm he feared for his life.

Since then, he has been unable to reach his son in Carisbrook and his cousin in Parottee.

“I don’t know if they are alive or not,” Simpson said.

He related that during the chaos he ran “breathless” through the wind and rain to seek shelter in his bus parked outside.

Despite tying down his roof before the storm, he said the gusts were far stronger than expected.

“A nuh breeze dat, dat a nuh breeze. Mi nuh know wah dat,” he said, still in shock over the hurricane’s ferocity.

Sanjay Simpson peeking through tarpaulin covering the remains of his mother’s house in New Holland, St Elizabeth, on Thursday.