ACTING director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) Commander Alvin Gayle says while no communities remain cut off at this time, just over a dozen communities in five parishes remain under threat from rising groundwater.

Speaking at the weekly Hurricane Melissa press briefing at Jamaica House in St Andrew Wednesday evening, Gayle said areas currently affected include Bogue in the parish of Clarendon; Comfort Hall, Evergreen, Content, and Harmons in Manchester; Brighton, New Market, and sections of Santa Cruz in St Elizabeth; Chigwell in Hanover; and Douglas Castle and Pedro River in St Ann.

The rising groundwater that has led to severe flooding in several of these communities has been attributed to the intense rainfall leading up to and during the passage of Hurricane Melissa on October 28. The system had been forecasted to bring up to 30 inches of rainfall to the country.

Gayle, who has been seconded from the Jamaica Defence Force to serve as director general of ODPEM, in pointing out that Jamaica’s recovery from Hurricane Melissa is progressing at pace, particularly with the restoration of water, telecommunications, and the essential services, said, to date, more than 16,000 donors, both locally and overseas, have contributed to the Government’s disaster relief platform, totalling some $556 million.

He, in the meantime, said the number of fatalities from the hurricane remains unchanged at 45, with some nine cases still under investigation. He, however, said the number of missing individuals continues to fluctuate.

“Fifteen persons remain missing, the number continues to evolve. Some persons have been coming off the list and a number of persons have also joined the list,” Gayle said while noting that, to date, 97 emergency shelters remain active housing some 1,296 people.

He said approximately 31 per cent of Jamaica remains without electricity, but said, “Prioritisation efforts continue in critical economic zones in St James, St Ann, and Trelawny.” Gayle further said 24 per cent of the National Water Commission’s system remains offline “primarily due to damage in western parishes and power instability in some regions”.

On the other hand, he said telecommunications have shown steady progress, with providers restoring just about 70 per cent of mobile sites, with an average of over 90 per cent of the daily active users of mobile networks able to access mobile service to include mobile data service.

Meanwhile, on the emergency relief front, Gayle said that ODPEM, in continuing to coordinate national and international support, “has delivered over 115,000 packages to include sanitisation and hygiene kits and reaching 282 communities”. He said as far as the efforts of the Jamaica Defence Force is concerned, the army has expanded its distribution footprint after further needs assessment, with seven distribution hubs and almost 26 humanitarian supply areas while maintaining air, ground, and small unit delivery operations in the deep rural corridors. Gayle said some 590 flying hours have been dedicated to this task to date.

In noting that the ODPEM continues to prioritise underserved communities, he said humanitarian partners World Central Kitchen has served over 1.3 million meals in the hardest-hit parishes.

In the meantime, he said by way of building counts for dwellings, approximately 156,000 dwellings were damaged, with some 24,000 of that number being total losses.