Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba pick up the pieces after Melissa's destruction

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SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba (AP) — The rumble of large machinery, whine of chain saws and chopping of machetes echoed through communities across the northern Caribbean on Thursday as they dug out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa and assessed the damage left behind.

In southeastern Jamaica, government workers and residents began clearing roads in a push to reach dozens of isolated communities that sustained a direct hit from one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record.

Stunned residents wandered about, some staring at their roofless homes and waterlogged belongings strewn around them.

"I don’t have a house now,” said a distressed Sylvester Guthrie, a resident of Lacovia in the southern parish of St. Elizabeth, as he held onto his bicycle, the only possession of value left after the storm.

Emergency relief flights began landing at Jamaica’s main international airport, which reopened late Wednesday, as crews distributed water, food and other basic supplies. Helicopters thrummed above communities where the storm flattened homes, wiped out roads and destroyed bridges, cutting them off from assistance.

“The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened,” Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon said.

Authorities said they have found at least four bodies in southwest Jamaica. Desmond McKenzie, deputy chairman of Jamaica’s Disaster Risk Management Council, declined to provide an update on the number of deaths, saying only that he expects the number to increase based on information he has received.

More than 13,000 people remained crowded into shelters, with 72% of the island without power and only 35% of mobile phone sites in operation, officials said.

“We understand the frustration, we understand your anxiety, but we ask for your patience,” said Daryl Vaz, Jamaica's telecommunications and energy minister.

Water trucks have been mobilized to serve many of Jamaica’s rural communities that are not connected to the government’s utility system, Water Minister Matthew Samuda said.

In Cuba, heavy equipment began to clear blocked roads and highways and the military helped rescue people trapped in isolated communities and at risk from landslides.

No deaths were reported after the Civil Defense evacuated more than 735,000 people across eastern Cuba ahead of the storm. They slowly were starting to return home.

The iconic town of El Cobre in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba was one of the hardest hit. Home to some 7,000 people, it is also the site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity, patron saint of Cuba and deeply venerated by Catholics and practitioners of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion.

“We went through this very badly. So much wind, so much wind. Zinc roofs were torn off. Some houses completely collapsed. It was a disaster,” said Odalys Ojeda, a 61-year-old retiree, as she looked up at the sky from her living room where the roofing and other parts of the house were torn away.

Even the basilica wasn’t spared.

“Here at the sanctuary, the carpentry, stained glass and even the masonry suffered extensive damage,” Father Rogelio Dean Puerta said.

A televised Civil Defense meeting chaired by President Miguel Díaz-Canel did not provide an official estimate of the damage. However, officials from the affected provinces — Santiago, Granma, Holguín, Guantánamo, and Las Tunas — reported losses of roofs, power lines, fiber optic telecommunications cables, cut roads, isolated communities and losses of banana, cassava and coffee plantations.

Many communities were still without electricity, internet and telephone service because of downed transformers and power lines.

In an unusual statement Thursday, the U.S. State Department said the United States was “ready to assist the Cuban people.” A press release from the agency stated it “is prepared to provide immediate humanitarian assistance directly and through local partners who can deliver it more effectively to those in need.”

The statement did not specify how the cooperation would be coordinated or whether contact had been made with the Cuban government, with which it maintains a bitter conflict that includes six decades of economic and financial sanctions pressuring for a change in its political model.

Melissa also unleashed catastrophic flooding in Haiti, where at least 25 people were reported killed and 18 others missing, mostly in the country’s southern region.

“It is a sad moment for the country,” said Laurent Saint-Cyr, president of Haiti’s transitional presidential council.

He said officials expect the death toll to rise and noted that the government is mobilizing all its resources to search for people and provide emergency relief.

Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Hurricane Melissa killed at least 20 people, including 10 children, in Petit-Goâve, where more than 160 homes were damaged and 80 others destroyed.

Steven Guadard said Melissa killed his entire family in Petit-Goâve, including four children ranging in age from 1 month to 8 years old.

Michelet Dégange, who has lived in Petit-Goâve for three years, said Melissa left him homeless.

“There is no place to rest the body; we are hungry,” he said. “The authorities don’t think about us. I haven’t closed my eyes since the bad weather began.”

When Melissa came ashore in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph (295 kph) on Tuesday, it tied strength records for Atlantic hurricanes making landfall, both in wind speed and barometric pressure.

Melissa was a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds near 105 mph (165 kph) Thursday morning and was moving north-northeast at 30 mph (48 kph) according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was centered about 430 miles (690 kilometers) west-southwest of Bermuda.

Melissa was forecast to pass near or to the west of Bermuda late Thursday and may strengthen further before weakening Friday.

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Rodriguez reported from Havana and Myers Jr. reported from Kingston, Jamaica. Associated Press reporters Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and David Constantin and Odelyn Joseph in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, contributed to this report.