NEW HOLLAND, St Elizabeth – Like many people in the communities hardest hit by Hurricane Melissa one week ago, Latoya Lynch, a resident of Middlesex — situated between Lacovia and Middle Quarters — is thankful for life even as she faces an uphill task of survival.

Lynch told the Jamaica Observer that she sought shelter with relatives in preparation for the storm, but she is now living in a nightmare with nothing available to feed her children.

“One suit of clothes we have can wear. We don’t have any bed. Right now the two little chicken that I had the intention to [sell] after the storm the breeze gone with them,” Lynch said in an interview last Thursday.

She welcomed the presence of the Observer as she shared her ordeal during the passage of the hurricane.

“This a history, papa. Out of my 35 years on Earth a history this. This yah storm yah bruk Guinness World Record. It mash up everybody. Over mi yard tear down. A mi mother-in-law floor mi have to be on. Me and mi pickney dem,” added Lynch, pain etched on her face as she pointed to her relatives who are also uncertain as to their next meal and suitable shelter.

“My brother-in-law with his young children and his pregnant baby mother, they have nothing now. Not even food we nuh have. A just cane and coconut water me have to a drink from morning.

“The pickney dem traumatise. They are asking when things are going to come back up. All a night time they don’t even want to leave our hands,” she said pointing out that the children are scared.

Lynch reiterated that she sought shelter with her extended family, but in the midst of the storm multiple roofs were ripped off by the strong winds.

“I was in this house and the roof lift off. I had to run to over there so and the roof lift off again with me and the young children,” she said, pointing to the house of a family member.

“We had to run go over to the deck one here so. [It’s] a good thing this is here. One of the time I was running with my daughter and the breeze a lift me up. I had to grab my daughter,” she added.

The family now stays in a roofless structure exposed to the elements.

“Three children in there plus my father-in-law. Right now he is sickly and want to go to the doctor. He is jerked up badly. He used to be able to sit up by himself now he can’t; a somebody have to help him,” she said.

A grim picture of the devastation in the area was also painted by Shamaroy Morris, a resident of New Holland.

“All the shelter damage too, Middlesex Primary. We lost every house,” said Morris.

“We are just hoping for the best and leaving everything is God’s hands. We hope we can get little help, because we don’t have anything. A start we a start back, enuh and we faced all of it. See it there, a pure family deh here so,” he added.

Lynch interjected, saying she sought shelter with family as her house in Middlesex was destroyed during the hurricane.

“My little house is flat. If I was in my little house over there I would be dead. A gather we gather and say it is better all of us are at one place. A pure family get hit,” she explained.

The family was marooned like many others in St Elizabeth for two days until soldiers and people with power saws cleared a section of Holland Bamboo main road on Thursday to gain access to Black River.

“When the soldiers got to us, it was in the night. People, who left from Mandeville to come and look on their people living in St Elizabeth, slept in Holland Bamboo,” Morris said.

Lynch then pointed to another relative, Sabrina, who is seven months pregnant.

“She is stressed out. From morning she a bawl for belly cramp and we don’t have anything to carry her go doctor. She shouldn’t be here a bawl for belly cramp. We don’t have any help. Me just have to look to God, because we know the crisis we are in,” said Lynch.

Latoya Lynch, Shamaroy Morris and Junior Morris (face partially hidden) speaking with the Jamaica Observer last Thursday in New Holland, St Elizabeth. (Photo: Kasey Williams)

This pregnant woman, identified by relatives only as Sabrina, squats as she and her family were left roofless in New Holland, St Elizabeth. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Junior Morris hugs these two children sharing a pack of banana chips in New Holland, St Elizabeth last Thursday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)