Carisa Lee

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her gov­ern­ment has reached out to Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and is mo­bil­is­ing to pro­vide im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance in the wake of the dis­as­ter. Cat­e­go­ry 5 storm Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa is bear­ing down on Ja­maica and is fore­cast to be the one of the worst in the is­land’s his­to­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued mo­ments ago, the gov­ern­ment has pre­pared to of­fer man­pow­er, tech­ni­cal re­sources, emer­gency sup­plies, and food­stuffs to sup­port re­lief and re­cov­ery ef­forts.

The Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF), the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Min­istry of De­fence, and the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs will co­or­di­nate the re­sponse to en­sure ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery of aid. The re­lease added that the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs is in ac­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion in Ja­maica to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and as­sist cit­i­zens cur­rent­ly there.

The gov­ern­ment al­so plans to launch a na­tion­al col­lec­tion dri­ve for re­lief sup­plies, en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es, and com­mu­ni­ty groups to con­tribute es­sen­tial items. Col­lec­tion points will be an­nounced soon.