The updates sent by friends and neighbors on WhatsApp confirmed what fisher Prince Davis already feared: Hurricane Melissa put a hole in the stern of his 50-foot (15-meter) fishing boat, and damaged the cabin and back deck.
His father’s boat was nowhere to be found. The roof of the house Davis and his parents shared in the small Jamaican fishing community of White House in Westmoreland parish was also destroyed.
Davis was in Nicaragua, where he’d flown shortly before the storm to find new customers for his fish business. But now his livelihood, and the livelihoods of many in his community, were in peril.
“It’s going to be very rough” said Davis. “With the damage now, no one will be buying products.”
About 29 kilometers (17 miles) northwest in Amity, also in Westmoreland parish, Denver Thorpe lost 15 acres (6 hectares) of mango trees and two greenhouses on his farm.
“There’s absolutely nothing,” said Thorpe, a farmer and regional manager for the Jamaica Agricultural Society, a farmer advocacy organization.
Hurricane Melissa is blamed for at least 28 deaths in Jamaica, bringing catastrophic winds up to 185 mph (298 kph) and storm surge that wrecked homes and public infrastructure.
