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It was the most powerful storm in Jamaica's history. Last week, Hurricane Melissa tore through the island and other Caribbean nations. Jamaican officials say the storm caused at least $7 billion worth of damage to the country's infrastructure and business sectors. Now, aid groups are on the ground. More of them are turning up, but as NPR's Fatma Tanis reports, they're struggling to reach people in need.
FATMA TANIS, BYLINE: It's hard enough to respond to the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane, but it's even harder when it's an island.
FRANCESCO PAGANINI: The first access difficulty is getting things in.
TANIS: Francesco Paganini is with Greater Goods Charities. He says food, water and hygiene kits need to be flown in or shipped from warehouses outside the island. Then there's the issue of roads. Paganini is on the ground and says it seems as though every tree and power line has been toppled, blocking roads.
PAGANINI: Somebody walked over an hour just to meet us and pick up some basic supplements, what they could carry by hand because we couldn't get any further up the road.
TANIS: Nearly 3 million people live in Jamaica, and half the island's population needs help. The State Department this week announced it's sending $12 million in assistance to Jamaica and another 12 million to Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas. But aid experts say a lot more is needed, and with the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID - the lead federal agency for international disaster relief - the U.S. doesn't have the same capacity to help that it used to. Alexis Masciarelli is with the World Food Programme. He says the damage wasn't only to people's homes but to Jamaica's ecosystem as well.
ALEXIS MASCIARELLI: There was this massive sea surge and just took away everything. And now with obviously the seawater, salty water, everything gets burned. The nature is all brown. There's no - there's not a green leaf left.
TANIS: He says Jamaica's breadbasket, the center of its fishing and agriculture industry, was decimated. Francesco Paganini says his organization was worried about the destroyed trees and crops, so they called up beekeepers on the island.
PAGANINI: It may sound silly that, oh, well, why are we worried about bees at this point, but you don't produce food without pollinators, and bees are the biggest pollinators.
TANIS: Paganini found out the bees were, in fact, starving from the lack of nectar and pollen. His organization is now shipping synthetic pollen from the U.S. to feed the bees. Both he and Masciarelli say the impact of the storm will be felt for many months to come.
Fatma Tanis, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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