{"id":18953,"date":"2025-10-29T19:06:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/18953\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T19:06:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:06:20","slug":"pittsburgh-area-resident-riding-out-hurricane-melissa-in-jamaica-says-its-the-scariest-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/18953\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh-area resident riding out Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica says it’s “the scariest thing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Hurricane Melissa<\/a>\u00a0rips through Jamaica, thousands of locals and visitors are riding it out, including a woman from southwestern Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

As the winds blew and the rain came pouring down in Montego Bay, Antoinette Margita hunkered down in her hotel, filled with anxiety.<\/p>\n

“I just don’t know what to expect. I’ve never been through anything like this,” Margita said. “It’s probably the scariest thing.”<\/p>\n

From Duquesne, she flew out of Pittsburgh and got to Jamaica on Friday for what was supposed to be a trip celebrating her friend’s birthday. But when there were early signs of a potential storm<\/a>, her friend decided to stay back.<\/p>\n

“I should have listened to her,” Margita said.<\/p>\n

She could not get an early flight out, so she enjoyed the sunshine until Monday night, when the front started to come in and pick up Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

“I kind of feel like I’m in a movie. It’s not real, but it is real,” Margita said. “You can hear like the wind. It’s like whistling. The door sounds like the door is going to come open.”<\/p>\n

The hotel gave the guests care packages with lots of water, along with notes on how to ride out the hurricane, instructing them to put a mattress against the window.<\/p>\n

So far, so good, as her hotel is running on a generator, but shortly after Melissa made landfall nearly 40 miles away, a little water started flooding under her door.<\/p>\n

“Just thinking positive and just trying to talk to my friends on the phone to get me through it,” Margita said.<\/p>\n

As the hours go on, Margita hopes things don’t get worse, waiting for the moment she can fly back to Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

“I just want to come home, honestly, that’s what I want,” Margita said.<\/p>\n

Margita was originally supposed to fly out on Tuesday. The flight was, of course, cancelled, as was her new flight for Wednesday. It’s unclear when the airport will reopen.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Hurricane Melissa\u00a0rips through Jamaica, thousands of locals and visitors are riding it out, including a woman from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[894,12354,12172,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-18953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-allegheny-county","9":"tag-hurricane","10":"tag-hurricane-melissa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","13":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18953","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=18953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}