LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The aroma of jerk chicken and mac and cheese fills the Irie Flavors restaurant in Lexington, but owner Michelle Bernett's mind is thousands of miles away in Jamaica, where Hurricane Melissa devastated the island with 185 mile per hour winds.
"My dad, my sisters. I have a brother back home. I have cousins, aunts. A lot of friends and extended family members," Bernett said. "Before the hurricane, I did reach out to my closer ones, like my sister, my nephews and stuff. And they were fine. But some of them I'm not able to get in contact with them now because they don't have electricity."
Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica Tuesday, cutting power and destroying homes across the island. Video sent from family on the east side shows the extensive damage left in the storm's wake.
For Nadine Hicks, who also has ties to the restaurant, the communication blackout is particularly concerning for the western part of the island, which bore the brunt of the hurricane's fury.
"No one in Jamaica has been able to get in touch with anyone on the west side of the island at all. And that's the side that got hit the hardest," Hicks said. "So I'm imagining that cell towers have been down and power is out, even though some of them have generators, it's just, there's no way in getting in touch with them at all."
Nearly all of Hicks' family remains in Jamaica. The videos she's received bring back painful memories of her own experience with Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
"I was 8 years old when Gilbert happened in 1988 and I remember living through that as a child," Hicks said. "I remember what we went through after Gilbert, how hard it was to get food and water."
Both women are channeling their worry into action, collecting donations at their restaurant to send to Jamaica. They're focusing on essential supplies their homeland desperately needs.
"The most important things right now is to get food supplies and clean water to them and medical supplies, beddings and clothes," Hicks said.
Bernett hopes the community will rally around Jamaica during this crisis.
"Jamaica used to be heaven for them to vacate and to have fun so in this time of crisis, I would love for them to extend a kind heart to help us all to kinda get back to some sort of normalcy there," Bernett said.
Despite the devastation, both women express confidence in Jamaica's ability to recover, drawing on the island's history of resilience.
"We will get through this. We will rise again. We'll be okay," Hicks said.
