Faith, floodwaters and survival

WESTERN BUREAU:

Cornwall Mountain is not the kind of place you stumble on by accident. The roads twist upward, breaking off into narrow lanes where houses sit on the hillsides and neighbours live like family.

But after Hurricane Melissa dealt its crushing blow to Westmoreland, the quiet district became one of many rural communities shouldering the weight of devastation. This community is one of many that are mostly unseen and mostly unheard.

It was in this forgotten corner that a small Seventh-day Adventist volunteer group stepped in, climbing the hills with a truckload of relief items.

And it was also here, in Cornwall Mountain, octogenarian Eunice Hemmings, better known as Ms Myrtle, was found. She had fought her way out of a collapsing house during Melissa’s strongest rains and winds, escaping rising floodwaters with nothing but wise instinct and faith to get along.

“It is not even a yard,” she said, shakily demonstrating how close the water crept up to her front porch. “It is not even a yard where the water come, like from here to there. [It] tear down the whole entire [back].”

Fortunately, she still had a roof over her head – but barely. The back section had collapsed into the gully, all while high waters had risen in front.

Hemmings says that she lives alone and none of her family lives close by.

When the hurricane barrelled across Westmoreland, she stayed inside her home, trusting the wooden structure that she had lived in for decades.

“It was rough because when the water come down, you know it’s coming over because you’re watching the water,” she said.

Although inside alone, she had eyes on her, and it was a neighbour who raised the alarm that she should evacuate immediately.

“When I look at it, someone say, ‘The water a come over!’, you know, but I can’t come out the house, and I can’t come at the front.”

The water rose swiftly, and it rushed violently, too.

“The front [was flooded], the back part come down before me come out. Me have to jump through the window ... and rush to the next neighbour.”

STILL IN SHOCK

That leap of faith, made by an 82-year-old woman with no chronic illnesses, possibly saved her life.

Even in the aftermath, Hemmings says she is still shocked, especially as she says no one had come to advise her to evacuate due to the devastation.

Now, her home barely exists, and her belongings are heavily damaged.

“My house was destroyed – the dresser, everything. Right now, I’m cleaning up,” she told The Gleaner.

Robyn McDonald, a volunteer, who stood by listening to Hemming’s story of survival, was overcome by an intensified need to perform another act of service.

“You don’t have a problem with us helping?” she asked.

“No problem,” Hemmings replied.

About four days after Hurricane Melissa practically demolished the already fragile back roads linking rural Westmoreland together, this group of Adventist volunteers decided they couldn’t wait for help to arrive.

Standing at the peak of Cold Spring Road, McDonald explained how it all began.

“A group of us, myself included, [along ith] Akayla Pierce, Rugine McDonald, and led by Dyke Williams, we came together and decided that we were going to help some of the ravaged victims who were affected by the storm,” she said.

At this time, the main roads were partly cleared, and some communities were slowly receiving assistance, but the group deliberately set their eyes elsewhere. Rural districts like Darliston, Beeston Spring, Goldsmith in Waterworks, Belmont, Mount Airy, Petersville and Cornwall Mountain in Westmoreland, places where help often arrives last – if at all.

Top Grove and Font Hill in St Elizabeth are also among the places the group has visited.

MADE WITH INTENTION

McDonald says that the packages were made with intention. Among the supplies were non-perishable foods, canned foods and other basic items.

“We issue water, female packages that include sanitary napkins, also diapers and wipes for the babies. Sometimes even formula.”

But food isn’t their only concern as the people still need to secure a roof over their heads.

“One time, specifically, we had tarpaulin to help the persons whose roofs are damaged in Waterworks,” he said.

As donations rolled in, the team grew and church members, neighbours, even strangers wanted to help pack or deliver.

Some nights, the team worked past midnight, sorting through the packages.

“We try to target areas outside of the main because these communities are oftentimes overlooked. So we try to come here and make these people feel like they are seen.”

Their first stop was at the Cornwall Mountain Infant School, which had been functioning as a community shelter before Hurricane Melissa turned its roof inside out.

The storm had affected sections of the zinc roof, and the classrooms were marred by water stains and scattered debris. Families who had taken refuge there during the storm had to gather in specific areas to avoid getting wet or hurt.

Meanwhile at the shelter, Letesha Llewellyn says her home was half concrete, half wood and only the concrete portion survived.

“You see my five children in the house?”

Inside the wreckage of her home, her son was injured when debris flew through the room.

“[My house] fly gone up in the air. You only see the [board] fly go away and stuff. All my son get injury – my son foot [chop] out.”

TAXI SITUATION A SPECIAL CASE

The taxi situation at Cornwall Mountain is a special case, where residents have to call taxis to arrange a pickup at a certain location and time, but the circumstances would not permit that. And with roads impassable, ambulances weren’t even a consideration.

“I have to charter a car so I can carry him, so I can get stitches and stuff like that,” said Llewellyn

Her shop, which was her livelihood, was also destroyed.

“Yeah, my shop blow down. And there isn’t nothing good.”

“We’re going back to square one [after] all the work that I do. I give up because I have no livelihood now. With no livelihood, I can’t earn nothing. But, you know what? I just thank God,” she said.

Meanwhile, the shell of her community, she says, is a sight no one wants to experience.

“Up here a nuh nothing good. Up here come in like, you know, like when you star duppy show – everything gone.”

When night falls, naturally fear moves in and residents are forced to turn in early.

“We don’t have no light, nothing at all. We have to go in from 6 o’clock. Some go in from 5 o’clock.”

Across the district, the volunteers found similar stories of broken board houses, damaged roofs, washed-out yards, and families living under tarpaulins or staying with neighbours.

McDonald said the experience highlighted the depth of vulnerability in rural communities.

“A lot of persons are living in poverty. They’re impoverished. And it also goes to show that a lot of persons don’t own any land and they have to reside in board houses. And a lot of these persons, their homes are damaged. They’re sleeping under zincs or they’re ‘kotching’ with someone,” she said.

But the mission, she explained, is far from complete.

“This is just like a beginning of the recovery process. We’re still in the rescue stage, where we’re handing out care packages to persons who are less fortunate or who have been affected by the passage of Melissa. Because I think a lot of persons were affected but some persons are more affected than others.”

mickalia.kington@gleanerjm.com