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Most of Jamaica is without power and has limited phone service after the strongest hurricane to ever hit the island made landfall this week. At least eight people have died there. NPR's Greg Allen reports people are eager to send aid from South Florida, home to the second-largest Jamaican community in the U.S.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: At a warehouse in Doral, a Miami suburb, volunteers have been working to pack boxes filled with food, water and hygiene products that are being shipped to Jamaica by Global Empowerment Mission. Joe Bernal is one of the volunteers.
JOE BERNAL: These necessity kits will usually feed a family of four. They have all types of goodies. And hopefully, these'll be on a airplane heading towards Jamaica tomorrow morning.
ALLEN: Global Empowerment Mission has been active in the Caribbean and around the world since it was founded in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The charity says it has more than a dozen tractor-trailer-sized containers loaded with aid already on their way to Jamaica. One volunteer packing and taping up boxes was Daina Levy. She was born and raised in Jamaica and says her family members in the Kingston area came through the storm OK. She says they were worried, though, about Melissa's winds - 185 miles per hour at landfall.
DAINA LEVY: The most powerful one before this was Gilbert in 1988. So people are feeling it right now, but they're happy to see that we're here packing goods to send back to Jamaica.
ALLEN: Despite its nearly unprecedented strength, Melissa was a relatively small hurricane that focused its destructive power on the island's western side. Raj Meragh, another volunteer, says his family and friends in the east in Kingston were all fine and remarkably upbeat.
RAJ MARAJ: It's the island, so there's always, I would say, a more positive attitude that, OK, everything is going to be fine. Let's not worry too much. But when the forecasters were predicting the amount of rain, the amount of winds, put that together with a very fragile infrastructure, very, very difficult situation.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)
ALLEN: Suddenly, one volunteer rings a bell while others cheer. They just completed a pallet of 50 boxes. Not everyone was in the mood to celebrate. Adrian Long was worried about his relatives who live near where Hurricane Melissa made landfall.
ADRIAN LONG: I have a lot of family there. My mom was born and raised in the south near St. Elizabeth, west of Black River, where the eye hit. I haven't heard from anybody, no power. Everything is probably gone.
ALLEN: Long says he came to pack aid boxes to do what he could to, in his words, serve his people.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Doral, Florida. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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