READING, Pa. – Inside Naked Chop Eateries in Reading, the kitchen is busy and the smell of Jamaican food fills the space. But concern is growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHurricane is here, Richard. It has landed. We’re having a lot of rain. The light has been disconnected island-wide and also the internet,\u201d said a voicemail from Richard King\u2019s sister, Carmelita, back in Jamaica.<\/p>\n
Even though Richard is here, cooking and serving, his heart is with his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince this morning, everybody was making sure their phones were charged and stuff like that,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re literally just sitting there waiting for it to happen, and hopefully, happen quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Customers are asking questions. Friends are checking in. Hurricane Melissa is the strongest storm to strike Jamaica in years, and King is watching closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s traveling so slow and raining so much,\u201d he explained. \u201cIf it crosses the country at that speed, there\u2019s going to be a lot of flooding. So that\u2019s the main concern now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Richard says it’s in moments like these that Jamaicans show the world their strength and their spirit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be amidst the tragedy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe normally find ways to find jovial things to say about events, so don\u2019t worry about us. Just pray for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Inside Naked Chop Eateries in Reading, the kitchen is busy and the smell of Jamaican…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12353,12852,28,736,128,130,129,12853],"class_list":["post-18133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-jamaica","tag-melissa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-richard-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}