Many Jamaicans in the city are worried about loved ones in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Earl Fullerton. I\u2019m still trying to reach a couple people.\u201d<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Many Jamaicans in New York City are worried about loved ones in the wake of Hurricane Melissa
\n
Some have been in touch with loved ones on the island, while others have not been any to get in contact with their family or friends
\n
Some Jamaicans in the city have begun organizing relief efforts, while some elected officials have reached out to the Jamaican government to find out how best they can help<\/p>\n
Fullerton runs Complete Home Care Services in the St.\u00a0Albans neighborhood, where many Jamaicans in Queens live.<\/p>\n
He said his grandmother\u2019s house in St Ann was boarded up before Hurricane Melissa touched down. Fullerton said she\u2019s OK, but he hasn\u2019t reached out to his mom in Kingston or his aunt in St. Ann yet due to storm damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of flooding going on,\u201d Fullerton said. \u201cI\u2019m just hearing that they\u2019re OK, but there\u2019s going to be a lot of rebuilding to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Down the street inside of Juban Deli, Steve Brown said he\u2019s worried about his family in St. Catherine, Jamaica, which is where he is from.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit devastating for them, Brown said. \u201cMost of them are inbound just for safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said his daughter and siblings back home are doing the best they can.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlooding, a lack of electricity as well,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the most part, the internet is down. So that\u2019s a bit painful, and for most of the neighbors, they\u2019re losing their roofing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been in touch with family,\u201d state Sen. Leroy Comrie said. \u201cSome depending on where they are, they\u2019ve all lost roofs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially in St. Elizabeth and Montego Bay, in [the] Black River area\u2026 in other parts of the Island,\u201d Comrie continued. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of devastation, and a lot of people are being displaced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comrie represents parts of southeast Queens, including Cambria Heights \u2014 another Jamaican stronghold.<\/p>\n
He is originally from Jamaica and believes the road to recovery will be long in his home country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reached out to the consulate about what they need,\u201d Comrie said. \u201cRight now, they need building materials and construction materials and heavy equipment sent down to Jamaica to help with the rebuilding.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was talking to my uncle in Montego Bay,\u201d Collin Douglas said. \u201cI haven\u2019t heard from anybody else then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over in the Bronx, Douglas, who is also Jamaican and owns the Original Dumpling shop on Baychester Avenue, said he\u2019s helping to organize a food and supply drive for loved ones back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people already dropping off stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cThey drop it here or bring it to the store. We\u2019re going to order stuff too to get it shipped off as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comrie recommends sending monetary donations straight to the government of Jamaica to avoid scams or other issues.<\/p>\n
Jamaica\u2019s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management has launched a website specifically for Hurricane Melissa relief, where donations can be made directly to the government.<\/p>\n
The Jamaican government has created a preliminary list of needs related to response and recovery for 400,000 people who\u2019ve been impacted on the same website dedicated to Hurricane Melissa relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Jamaicans in the city are worried about loved ones in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. \u201cI\u2019m not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[25,9,24,12,26,63,122,124,123,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-22158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-nia-clark","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}