Click to view full size

Ja­maica is be­gin­ning the task of clean­ing up on Wednes­day af­ter the cat­e­go­ry 5 hur­ri­cane Melis­sa left sev­er­al paths of dam­age in its wake af­ter slow­ing mov­ing through the Caribbean is­land with winds in ex­cess of 180 miles per hour (MPH) on Tues­day.

The gov­ern­ment has al­ready de­clared the coun­try a dis­as­ter zone and the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Emer­gency Man­age­ment (ODPEM) said it has cre­at­ed lo­gis­ti­cal cells to har­ness agen­cies, in­clud­ing cus­toms, Air­port Au­thor­i­ty and the Ja­maica De­fence Force, to en­sure smooth op­er­a­tions for the clear­ance and dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­lief sup­plies.

“[This is] to en­sure that when­ev­er we are get­ting in sup­plies com­ing in­to the coun­try , and we know that we will have a lot of com­mit­ments com­ing in from over­seas, we will have enough hands on board and a very well put to­geth­er plan to en­sure that when sup­plies are in coun­try they are not back­ing up at the ports,” said act­ing OPEM Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al, Richard Thomp­son.