{"id":24182,"date":"2025-10-28T20:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/24182\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:30:08","slug":"jacksonville-woman-prays-for-family-in-jamaica-as-hurricane-melissa-slams-island-with-185-mph-winds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/24182\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville woman prays for family in Jamaica as Hurricane Melissa slams island with 185 mph winds"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, people with family on the island grew increasingly worried.<\/p>\n

Sanjae Edwards might be in Jacksonville, but her heart is in Jamaica with family members scattered across the island.<\/p>\n

The licensed clinical social worker and therapist<\/a> said many members of her extended family live on the island\u2019s west side, directly in the storm\u2019s path.<\/p>\n

Edwards\u2019 parents and brother are also visiting Jamaica and were due to return to Florida next week, so she watched anxiously on Tuesday as the system moved ashore.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust hoping for the best. Hoping for the best,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cMy parents, first and foremost, and my brother, they\u2019re there. My aunts, cousins that I grew up with, friends.\u201d <\/p>\n

Edwards said her relatives prepared the best they could, stocking food, water and other supplies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have made an effort to get the things that they needed,\u201d she said. \u201cRecognizing that there may be difficulty in being able to get out after the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

She voiced particular concern about the intensity of the storm, a Category 5 with sustained wind speeds upward of 185 mph before it made landfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very worried, so concerned, but very worried because Jamaica\u2019s never really dealt with a Category 5 hurricane,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n

Melissa is the third Category 5 storm of the season, but the first Category 5 hurricane to strike land in the Atlantic this decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked what the mood was like on the island as the storm approached, Edwards said residents tried to find comfort in familiar traditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some people are making the best of a situation that\u2019s not necessarily going to be the best,\u201d she said. \u201cI think, as a group of people, a lot of times humor, you know, parties, cooking are ways of just coming together and just doing the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, people with family on the island grew increasingly worried.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12864,116,118,117,12146,13715,1455,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-24182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-hurricane-melissa","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","11":"tag-jacksonville-news","12":"tag-jamaica","13":"tag-tracking-the-tropics","14":"tag-tropics","15":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}