The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go says 85 stu­dents re­spond­ed to an email sent on Thurs­day, more than 12 hours be­fore two sched­uled flights from Ja­maica, of­fer­ing dis­count­ed trav­el to T&T as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa neared land­fall. The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com says there are 268 stu­dents cur­rent­ly reg­is­tered in Ja­maica.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers, at a news con­fer­ence held this af­ter­noon on the mat­ter, said the Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to en­sure food sup­plies were avail­able for stu­dents who re­mained on the is­land. More than 140 sup­plies have been dis­trib­uted. He said the op­er­a­tion to sup­port stu­dents is on­go­ing.

Yes­ter­day, com­plaints be­gan to sur­face from par­ents and T&T stu­dents in Ja­maica about an al­leged lack of re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment as the storm ap­proached.