Welcome to the NewsHour. Caribbean islands have suffered terrible devastation in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.

The death toll is in flux, but initial estimates show the storm has killed dozens across Haiti and Jamaica.

Melissa is one of the strongest storms the region has ever seen, leaving widespread destruction in multiple Caribbean nations.

The hurricane landed first on Jamaica yesterday as a Category 5 storm.

It was the strongest storm to ever hit Jamaica.

Leaving streets submerged, homes destroyed, and 77 percent of the island without power. A lot of my friends' house is gone.

Nice, nice home.

In the fishing village of Alligator Pond,

residents like Dennis Elliott began to piece back together their lives.

You gotta pick up your tools in your hand.

The claw bar and the hammer, the machete, the speed, and move on to the future seeing

me, hoping for never to see a starn like this again.

It was terrible.

I witness about, I'm 54 and I witness about three dangerous storm.

This one was worse. It was terrible. The wind, it was violent.

It was terrible. Despite the devastation, Alvin English says this agricultural area,

Jamaica's so-called breadbasket, will survive.

And we go down, we come back up. We go down and come back up.

But Dennis Zulu, United Nations coordinator for the region, warned of long-term consequences.

Not only will food crops and fields destroyed, but we'll also see a possibility,

a very likely possibility that Jamaica will have some issues in terms of food security for the coming months.

What we are seeing in preliminary assessments

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