RICHMOND, Va. β Hurricane Melissa rapidly intensified Monday into a Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds reaching 160 mph, threatening to devastate Jamaica as it passes over the island early Tuesday morning.
National News
Jamaica warned to shelter in place as Category 5 Hurricane Melissa approaches
According to the National Hurricane Center, Melissa is expected to strike Cuba later Tuesday night after passing over Jamaica. Forecasters said life-threatening winds, flooding, storm surge and landslides could devastate the island, especially the southern coastal regions.
At Carena's Jamaican Grill in Midlothian, owner Carena Ives is busy with her customers, but her mind is very much on her native home of Jamaica, where family including her mother is bracing for the massive hurricane.
"I want to hold onto the beauty of the island because I know what it feels like and I know what it means in my heart, but I know that it's going to be devastated," Ives said. "Jamaicans, they are hard core. They are tough, tough people. They know what hardship is, and I think that's part of the tragedy of this, because a lot of these families live in poverty for a long time and they don't have the best of resources. And so having this kind of thing on top of people who have bare limited resources or nothing at all, it's just tragic."
Ives says her mother survived massive Hurricane Charlie in 1951 and Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
"Which coincidentally are 37 years apart and Melissa is another 37 years apart," she said.
While she fears for her family's safety, Ives is asking for the Richmond community to rally behind the island as they face an uncertain future.
"Living in Richmond, people may not know that there's a lot of Jamaicans here, but there are. We're on the police force, there's a ton of Jamaican officers on the police force here in Chesterfield and in Richmond," Ives said. "We're caregivers in hospitals and nursing homes, nurses. We're teachers that have moved from the island to teach here in Richmond, Virginia and North Carolina, so we have a big population of those people and some of those people are from those big city areas, those really dense city areas, and their families are going to be impacted by this."
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