KINGSTON, Jamaica - (KRT) - Virtually all of Jamaica remained without electricity and 40 main roads were still under water Monday as the Caribbean island began receiving U.S. and Mexican aid for those hardest hit by Hurricane Ivan.
By Jacqueline CharlesThe supplies were scheduled to be distributed Tuesday via helicopter drops to areas cut off by the floodwaters, including Aenon Town, Clarendon and Portland Cottage, where eight people were killed by Ivan's storm surges.
Hundreds of stranded visitors finally could go home Monday afternoon after up to six feet of sand was cleared from the main road leading to the airport, allowing it reopen and resume flights.
Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who still is trying to come up with a dollar estimate of the widespread wreckage, on Monday toured Caribbean Terrace, a middle-class community just outside of Kingston. There, storm surges knocked down the walls of about a dozen seafront homes, swallowing furniture and appliances and completely destroying most of them.
"I don't have a house. I don't have furniture. I don't have anything," said Connell Simmonds, 53, standing on a pile of rubble after salvaging only a heavy-duty yellow extension cord and what he believed was one of his toilets from under a heap of dirt.
But as grim as the neighborhood appeared Monday, as a tractor swept up soaked mattresses, mountains of dirt and bamboo branches from debris-littered streets and sidewalks, residents there were thankful that they had survived Ivan.
"I'm not destroyed. My house is destroyed," said Shirley McLean-Brown, a local artist and one of the few whose homes remained livable. "We are doing fine. I am not one to hang onto material things. It's the reality of the situation."
That reality gets more clear day by day as disaster experts and government officials continue to try to get a handle on the damage total.
Before his tour, which was accompanied by Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago, Patterson met with his Cabinet ministers in hopes of coming up with a damage figure and a plan for how the government would assist those who have lost their roofs or their homes.
In all, the government is reporting that 177 communities have been affected - and the number could rise as soon as telephone, cellular and Internet service become available in many areas and floodwaters recede from some 40 main roads.
"Only about 5 percent of the country has electricity," said Nadine Newsome, a spokeswoman with the office of disaster and emergency preparedness.
In addition, some 14,000 of Jamaica's 2.7 million residents remain in shelters. Hundreds of individuals in the southern region of the country had to be evacuated from their homes as late as Sunday, after rising floodwaters and landslides threatened to cut them off.
