Assessments and cleanup were underway for much of Thursday, in areas of the southern and central Bahamas after Hurricane Melissa passed a day earlier, uprooting trees, tearing down utility poles and damaging some roofs.
While some residents reported scary moments in the storm, many were left relieved that they dodged the worst, as the hurricane was downgraded to Category 1 – the lowest strength on the Saffir-Simpson scale – after tearing a path of destruction across Jamaica as a Category 5 then slamming Cuba.
The storm delivered flooding, power outages, unstable water supply, and infrastructure damage to the south and central islands.
