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But once we arrived in central Jamaica we started to see how severely the island had been hit. The town of Mandeville has been, for want of a better word, flattened. A petrol station lost its roof and most of its pumps. Dana Malcolm of the Jamaica Observer described "very, very slow progress" along roads still blocked by landslides when reaching St Elizabeth. She told the BBC: "I was standing in what used to be main street yesterday and I was knee-deep in mud where the road should have been." Kabien, who runs a beauty business in the Santa Cruz area of St Elizabeth, said she is staying in her house with the roof blown off and flooding because the public shelter is too dangerous. She told the BBC on Thursday morning it was "extremely traumatic especially for the kids." She continued: "We are still at home now. Even though it is flooded and has no roof. We don't have any options. I'm trying to clean up. The shelters aren't safe for my kids. The beddings are too close to random men. There aren't separate areas for kids, men, women and adults."
