Gonsalves contacts Vincy student group as hurricane threatens Jamaica

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said Saturday he had contacted the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Vincentian Students Association as Hurricane Melissa barrels towards Jamaica.

He asked people at the opening of the new port in Kingstown, “to raise our prayers to our brothers and sisters in Jamaica who are currently facing an immediate peril, the peril of hurricane Melissa”.

Officials in Jamaica issued warnings on Saturday as Hurricane Melissa was forecast to become the strongest hurricane to ever impact the island.

The hurricane was forecast to reach category 5, the highest on the five-force scale, within 48 hours, with sustained winds of at least 157 mph.

“I want to express our solidarity with the government and people of Jamaica, and I want to also especially say to our students who are at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus, and those who are at the University of Technology in Jamaica and other institutions and Vincentians living and working in Jamaica,” Gonsalves said.

“I want you to know that our thoughts are with you, and I ask that we send up to Almighty God our prayers for their safe keeping, for their comfort and for their lives and living.”

He reported that he was in touch on Friday with the Vice Chancellor at UWI, Sir Hillary Beckles, “who informed me that the university has taken superb precautions and put all necessary and desirable measures in place for the safety and protection of our students in residence at the university”.

Gonsalves said Beckles had told him that the university had asked Jamaican students who had accommodation “of a particular quality to withstand the ravages of a hurricane, to go home so that spaces could be made on the campus for other regional and international students of the university to occupy them in safety”.

The prime minister said Beckles told him that the principal of the campus was working with all the university authorities “to ensure that all goes well as is humanly practicable when faced with an impending hurricane”.

Gonsalves said that over the last two days, he has been in touch with the president and vice president of the Vincentian Students Association in Jamaica.

“And just before I arrived here — in fact, while I was at the gate, I was speaking, first to the president and then to the vice president. They assure me that, thus far, they are okay,” he said. 

“Naturally, there are anxieties. I have spoken to several parents who are students there. As we celebrate here this evening, I ask you presently, quietly, to send up a prayer for all the people of Jamaica and our students. I shall keep in touch with them. And the issue is not always the danger of the hurricane itself, but in the aftermath, we lift them in our prayers,” he said.