Direct Relief Scales Up Caribbean Support as Hurricane Melissa Slams Jamaica

Hurricane Melissa, one of the two strongest Atlantic storms in recorded history and the strongest ever to hit Jamaica, made landfall in the island nation on Tuesday afternoon.

Although the wind speeds have weakened somewhat, Melissa made landfall with life-threatening winds of 185 miles per hour. It remains a devastating event, menacing Jamaicans with as much as 40 inches of rainfall and storm surge of up to 13 feet in some areas. People have already been killed in Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic, and at least four Jamaican hospitals have sustained significant damage - a reason for serious concern, as damage to healthcare infrastructure can have long-lasting impacts in post-disaster settings.

This cataclysmic storm is likely to cause devastation from flooding and landslides across Jamaica, before continuing across eastern Cuba late on Tuesday and hitting the southeastern Bahamas on Wednesday.

In anticipation of the storm's projected impact across Jamaica and the Caribbean, Direct Relief is committing an initial $250,000 in emergency funding and has made available its entire inventory of medicines and medical supplies, including antibiotics, gastrointestinal medications, insulin, personal protective equipment, and vaccines to support hurricane-impacted communities in Jamaica and other affected countries.

The organization also dispatched on Monday the most recent tranche of medical aid, including 100 field medic packs and 250 hygiene kits, to Jamaica's Ministry of Health and Wellness.

Direct Relief's emergency response personnel in the region are on standby and ready to deploy to affected areas as needed to coordinate the delivery of emergency medical aid as soon as conditions allow.

Direct Relief is coordinating closely with partners in the Caribbean, including Jamaica's Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Dominican Republic's Office of Civil Defense, the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO, and local nonprofit partners in the storm's projected path. These local, national, and regional partnerships are critical to identifying priority health needs and ensuring the rapid delivery of life-saving medical assistance in the wake of the storm.

Amy Weaver, Direct Relief's CEO, has spoken directly with Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, MP, Jamaica's Minister of Health and Wellness, to discuss immediate priorities for post-disaster healthcare intervention.

Before the Storm

With more than two decades of experience responding to hurricanes and other extreme weather events worldwide, and an extensive partner network in Hurricane Melissa's forecast cone, Direct Relief is ideally positioned to rapidly mobilize additional medical aid as requested by partners in affected areas.

Even before hurricane season began this year, Direct Relief prepositioned 13 hurricane preparedness packs throughout the Caribbean, including four with healthcare providers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and two available at the UN Humanitarian Response Depot in Panama for regional deployment.

Each pack contains more than 200 essential items to sustain care for as many as 3,000 patients for 30 days, including medicine for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, inhalers, antibiotics, antifungal treatments, wound care supplies, and other supplies.

The organization also prepositioned field medic packs and hygiene kits with partners in hurricane-prone countries throughout the region, including more than 100 packs and 300 hygiene kits delivered earlier this month to the Dominican Republic's civil defense agency. Additional emergency response resources are ready for deployment from Direct Relief's headquarters in Santa Barbara, California.

Bolstering Caribbean Resilience

As part of its broader preparedness strategy across the Caribbean, Direct Relief has provided $12.6 million to regional projects through its Caribbean Resiliency Fund. This fund aims to strengthen health systems across the region to withstand and quickly recover from the growing impacts of climate-driven disasters. Support has included:

• $3 million to build a large solar and battery backup system for a central pharmaceutical warehouse in Jamaica; ensure power resilience at several health clinics and community centers across eastern and rural parts of Jamaica's Saint Andrew's Parish and across the southern coast and greater Kingston area; and procure two mobile health clinics for Jamaica's Ministry of Health and Wellness., among other activities.
• $3 million for health infrastructure projects, including resilient power, cold-chain, medical oxygen, and mobile healthcare services, in Eastern Caribbean nations.
• $1 million to bolster disaster preparedness and response capacities in the Dominican Republic, including via enhanced cold chain and medical warehousing infrastructure.
• $1 million to support emergency operating costs for nine health facilities affected by the ongoing civil unrest in Haiti.

Additionally, Direct Relief provided more than $75 million in financial support and medical aid to strengthen Puerto Rico's health system in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which caused catastrophic damage, a prolonged power blackout, and widespread health and humanitarian needs in September 2017. Among other activities, Direct Relief funding enabled the provision of resilient energy for much of the island's critical healthcare infrastructure.

The Pan American Health Organization serves as a distribution partner to public health facilities during emergencies and facilitates staging of Direct Relief emergency medical commodities at PAHO's regional stockpile in Panama. Since 2018, Direct Relief and PAHO have coordinated the delivery of more than $408 million in medicines and medical supplies to disaster-affected communities across 18 countries.

A wide-ranging partnership with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States enables Direct Relief to work with a network of health ministries and emergency management agencies across the OECS's 12 member states. The partnership also supports the prepositioning of emergency supplies at OECS's warehouse in Saint Lucia and other preparedness efforts across the region.

These long-term investments and strategic positioning programs are part of Direct Relief's broader commitment to supporting communities before, during, and after disasters strike.

In total, Direct Relief provides support to dozens of partners in 14 countries across the Caribbean, bolstering everything from resilient infrastructure to maternal healthcare.