{"id":29573,"date":"2025-10-30T02:20:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T02:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/29573\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T02:20:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T02:20:51","slug":"hurricane-melissa-hits-jamaica-kern-county-resident-awaits-word-from-loved-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/29573\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica, Kern County resident awaits word from loved ones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hurricane Melissa is devastating Jamaica, cutting off communication for many families. Including one man still hasn\u2019t heard from his family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s scary because it\u2019s the beginning this was the beginning of what\u2019s going to happen and all these massive trees are broken in half in the beginning, just imagine what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d said Barrington Lewis.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis is a Jamaican native, with a majority of his family still living on the island.<\/p>\n<p>With Hurricane Melissa hitting land on Tuesday as a Category 5, Lewis says the silence from his family has been deafening.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen was the last time that you\u2019ve spoken to anyone from Jamaica?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwo days ago before the hurricane actually hit land and so it hit land today and so far nothing,\u201d said Lewis.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis says last he heard, his family was taking shelter indoors as they try to wait out the hurricane.<\/p>\n<p>But videos from his family show, the storm isn\u2019t stopping anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Red Cross, coordinations are currently in place with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to determine how to properly assist.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Red Cross says in part quote,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are supporting an Emergency Family Assistance Center at Naval Air Station Pensacola to assist with the evacuation of U.S. citizens ahead of impacts from Hurricane Melissa. We are always grateful for the generosity of our community. At this time, as the full scope of humanitarian impacts is not clear, we are not accepting donated items for this operation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As communication efforts continue to be exhausted, Lewis says all he can do now is rely on the local news and YouTube videos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have plenty of relatives down there and tons of friends, people that love me and people I love so I have to keep them in my prayers and in my heart,\u201d said Lewis.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in need of assistance contacting a family member impacted by Hurricane Melissa, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.redcross.org\/about-us\/our-work\/international-services\/reconnecting-families.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.redcross.org\/about-us\/news-and-events\/press-release\/2025\/red-cross-movement-responds-in-caribbean-.html?srsltid=AfmBOoq4NXci67VK3wHcpslmkEWsDRwZ35bvTVGS-LxTWfb9fOQbqY7F\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> to learn more about what the Red Cross\u2019s relief efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa is devastating Jamaica, cutting off communication for many families. Including one man still hasn\u2019t heard from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,155,153,152,179,21894,21895,21896,162,23,2581,21897],"class_list":["post-29573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-community","tag-hurricane-melissa","tag-hurricane-melissa-impacts","tag-jamaica","tag-kern-county-news","tag-local-news","tag-national-news","tag-red-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}