Providing Relief in Jamaica After Hurricane Melissa

Hurricane Melissa Relief
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Samaritan’s Purse medical teams are caring for patients in Black River and isolated communities as relief efforts continue after Hurricane Melissa. Other disaster specialists are delivering critical supplies. Please pray.

Latest Updates

  • Our Emergency Field Hospital opened Nov. 5 in Black River and, combined with our mobile medical units providing care in difficult-to-reach places, we have treated more than 1,000 patients in areas of southwest Jamaica.
  • We are providing survivors with water, shelter, hygiene items, solar lights, and other supplies. This includes hundreds of Bibles provided to residents. Multiple airlifts have delivered more than 500,000 pounds of relief to the island.
  • Many areas remain cut off by severed roads and bridges. Hundreds of thousands of people remain without power.
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Our Emergency Field Hospital staff and mobile medical teams are meeting vast need as Jamaicans face days ahead without a working hospital or critical infrastructure. Multiple Samaritan's Purse airlifts have carried hundreds of thousands of pounds of emergency aid, and scores of disaster specialists to meet needs in Black River and beyond.

The local hospital in Black River, near where Hurricane Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 storm, was destroyed and nearly every other building was severely damaged. Our Emergency Field Hospital is filling the gap with 30 inpatient beds, plus an operating room, intensive care unit, emergency room, obstetric ward, laboratory, pharmacy, and blood bank.

Our helicopters have run dozens of missions to transport our mobile medical teams to inaccessible areas so we can care for those with no other hope of treatment. Doctors are seeing broken bones and terribly infected wounds that have not been addressed since the hurricane hit. Between these mobile units and our Emergency Field Hospital, we’ve already treated more than 1,000 patients, which has included a large number of surgeries.

“Hurricane Melissa hammered a path of destruction across Jamaica, severely damaging homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses. Please pray for those who have lost so much and for our teams as we go in Jesus’ Name.”

Franklin Graham President, Samaritan’s Purse

With four community water systems, and with a reverse osmosis desalination unit soon coming online as a fifth system, we are serving in multiple locations providing many thousands of gallons of clean water every day and we continue to distribute shelter materials, household water filters, solar lights, hygiene kits, and other supplies to families in need. We are working alongside dozens of local church partners to meet needs and minister to hurting communities in Jesus' Name.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Jamaica in the early afternoon, Oct. 28, as a deadly Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 185 mph. The island nation bore the brunt of the catastrophic storm—the most powerful storm on record to ever hit the country—with extreme storm surge, high winds, and torrential rain. This triggered flash flooding and landslides. Thousands of people remain in shelters, and the majority of the island is still without power.

Please be in prayer for all those affected by this major storm—the strongest on the planet this year.

Photos

A Samaritan’s Purse physician examines a young patient as her mother offers comfort inside our Emergency Field Hospital in Black River, Jamaica. A Samaritan’s Purse team member distributes shelter materials to families. Edward Graham, Samaritan’s Purse chief operating officer, visits with residents in Jamaica as our teams respond after Hurricane Melissa. Graham connects with a group of local children in Jamaica, eventually breaking into laughter at the young boy’s energetic expressions. Group of Jamaican residents collecting clean water from a Samaritan’s Purse filtration system after Hurricane Melissa. Aerial view of Samaritan’s Purse Emergency Field Hospital tents and equipment being set up in Black River, Jamaica, after Hurricane Melissa. Samaritan’s Purse worker operates a water filtration system near the shoreline amid hurricane debris in Jamaica. Collapsed church structure with splintered wooden beams and debris after Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica. Samaritan’s Purse worker prays with a Jamaican woman and child amid storm-damaged homes after Hurricane Melissa. Two Samaritan’s Purse workers walk down a damaged street lined with debris and broken power poles in Jamaica. Interior of a church with its roof torn off and debris scattered inside after Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica. Samaritan’s Purse workers load white relief boxes marked “International Relief” onto pallets for shipment to Jamaica. Samaritan’s Purse aircraft being unloaded with large pallets of supplies for Jamaica. Samaritan’s Purse helicopter taking off to deliver aid to remote hurricane-affected areas in Jamaica. Aerial photo showing extensive hurricane damage to homes and streets across Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa.

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