At West Cuisine, a Grenadian restaurant in Crown Heights, everybody had bad news to share yesterday.

Family and friends in their tiny Caribbean home island were reeling from Hurricane Ivan’s devastating path, the worst storm to hit the region in more than a decade.

“There are still a number of people who are missing and with no communication,” said Leon West, an owner of West Cuisine. “It’s very difficult, everybody has gathered to talk about it.”

Contact with the Caribbean island has been excruciatingly limited for the estimated 20,000 Grenadians living in New York, with connections essentially restricted to cellular phones – which cannot be recharged because electricity is out.

The news that has come through has not been good: Grandmothers’ homes blew away, businesses bought by driving taxi in New York were destroyed, children left behind were forced to find refuge in basements. On the 120-square-mile island, 90% of the homes have been damaged, there is no electricity or running water, and more than a dozen people were killed.

In the city’s Grenadian pockets, mostly located in Crown Heights and Canarsie, Brooklyn, with a smaller contingent in the Bronx, the discussion turned to how to help the island.

“Everybody’s doing it together,” Mr. West said to one customer at his restaurant, telling her donated clothes and foodstuffs would be brought from village to village. He encouraged others gathered at the restaurant to go directly down to the island. “We need some volunteers to help rebuild, carpenters, plumbers, electricians.”

A more formal effort got underway yesterday afternoon at Grenada’s New York consulate, where more than a dozen immigrant leaders and the consul general swapped stories and discussed how best to mobilize aid.

“The island has been thrown back at least 20 years,” said Cecil Belfon, who runs a Grenadian affairs Web site. “The bridges are out. It’s extremely bad. It’s unprecedented.”

As of yesterday morning, Mr. Belfon still had heard no word about his grandmother. He said he received 25 to 30 posts every five minutes with inquiries from individuals looking for family members. “Everybody is desperate to know what is going on.”

In the city’s more numerous Jamaican community, which is about 750,000-strong, nervous anticipation grew as Hurricane Ivan hurdled toward Jamaica.

Tomorrow, Jamaican and Grenadian leaders will join forces at Governor Pataki’s office to strategize a state sponsored response, said Una Clarke, director of the Empire State Development Corporation.

“We know we are going to need building materials, we may need to decontaminate water systems, provide agricultural products to move the economy,” Ms. Clarke said.

Back at West Cuisine, owner Maria West was trying to get a relief plane down to the island, with little luck.

Mrs. West said her family members were safe, but they were not okay. “They’re just like everybody else,” she said. “They’re homeless and they’re walking around. There is no one person who has anything left.”