Country Director and representative for the World Food Programme (WFP) Caribbean Office, Brian Bogart, says securing food for Jamaicans hardest hit by Hurricane Melissa is the organisation’s first priority. Mr. Bogart, who was speaking in an interview with JIS News on Thursday (October 30) during a tour of St. Elizabeth with technical directors from the Ministry of Labour and Social...

There was a sense of community at the Paul Bogle High School emergency shelter in St. Thomas as residents came together to prepare meals, play games and care for each other during the passage of Hurricane Melissa. More than 100 residents from flood-prone and vulnerable communities were safely housed at the facility. The number included 30 children, 36 women, and...

Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Desmond McKenzie says all designated hurricane shelters will remain open for as long as they are needed to facilitate persons affected by the passage of Hurricane Melissa. Providing an update at a press briefing at the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) in Kingston, on October 28, Minister McKenzie informed that close to 15,000...

The Government remains committed to investing in the improvement of emergency shelters. This assurance comes from Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Hon. Desmond McKenzie, who reaffirmed the Administration’s dedication to strengthening shelter facilities across the island. “We’ll be [looking] over the next couple of years, starting next year, to improve on our shelters. I will not deny that...

Hurricane Melissa has begun shifting northwest and remains on track to make landfall in Jamaica early Tuesday morning (October 28) as a powerful Category Five cyclone. Principal Director of the Meteorological Services Branch in the Ministry of Water, Environment and Climate Change, Evan Thompson, said the hurricane is currently positioned just over 100 miles south of the island. “What we...

Residents of Trelawny and St. Ann are being urged to relocate to shelters before it is too late. Despite a broad network of emergency shelters set up at schools across both parishes in anticipation of the impact of Hurricane Melissa, occupancy levels remain low, prompting officials to issue a public plea to persons living in vulnerable areas. “We have some...

The Bamboo River drain in Morant Bay, St. Thomas, is among major channels cleared as the parish readies for Hurricane Melissa. ““I think we have done enough. There are some critical drains (in the parish) and they are cleaned like the one in Bamboo River, which is the main one,” Chief Engineering Officer at the St. Thomas Municipal Corporation, Odel...