MONTEGO BAY, St James — Undone by Hurricane Melissa, six-year-old Genesis hadn’t eaten all morning. Her mom Dionne Blackwood, who runs a catering business, was growing increasingly frantic as she sat in the ABM drive-through at CIBC Fairview in Montego Bay waiting to get money to buy supplies. It was November 2, five days after the Category 5 storm, and everyone’s supplies were running low.

Blackwood asked almost every individual who walked by her car for an update on what was happening at the cash machine, her voice increasingly filled with anxiety as she explained that her kids had not eaten in a while. The security guard said the cash had run out and the machine had to be restocked, but the machines inside the bank had to be done before the ones for the ABM.

Blackwood’s voice went up an octave when that bit of info was passed on.

When three sharp-looking cops on motorcycles drove past the line of cars that had not moved much in about an hour, the woman in front of Blackwood’s car asked them for help.

“She’s spiralling. She says her kids are hungry,” the woman told the cops who securely held their rifles close to their bodies as they listened attentively.

The cop whose bike was just a shade in front of his colleagues’ did not hesitate.

“Look in the middle part of my backpack,” he said.

Inside: A tin of Vienna sausages, a pack of water crackers, a pack of cheese crackers, and a pack of what Jamaicans call ‘tough crackers’.

“Take it all,” said the young lawman.

In case he needed it, or just in case he could help someone else, he was left with the tough crackers.

As the food was passed into the car, Blackwood cried.

The good deed may very well have been karma. Blackwood’s family had also been lending a helping hand in her Mango Walk community after the storm.

“There are a few vulnerable persons in my neighbourhood, persons maybe in their late 80s going into the 90s. The day after the hurricane, my husband and my son, they reached out to the first persons on our block. We had someone there that was in a weaker situation. Her entire roof came off. My husband and my son decided to just jump the fence to go to check on her. Unfortunately, this particular neighbour died two days after, I think due to trauma,” Blackwood told the Jamaica Observer from her car in the ABM drive-through.

“We’ve just been doing what we can do in the neighbourhood,” she added, after explaining how they cleared sections of the road to reach neighbours and sat with one elderly woman for a long time as she was badly rattled by the storm.

But Blackwood’s strong façade crumbled when she faced the challenge of the ABM line a few days later.

“A lady came out and saw that I was here with the kids and they haven’t eaten from morning and I need the money so I could stock up again on food because we’ve been waiting on this hurricane for a while. The police were so nice. They said to the person who was standing outside, ‘Look in my bag, Take out all [of it]. So my daughter end up with sausage, we end up with crackers, biscuits. That was just so heart-warming for us right now. It brought tears to my eyes that they would have stopped to even just take out what they have and share,” she told the Observer. “We are here, we are trusting in God, and in the midst of all that, I am trying to help the other persons who I know that are around me that need help.”