{"id":19257,"date":"2025-10-30T01:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T01:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/19257\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T01:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T01:37:11","slug":"pennsylvania-woman-cut-off-from-family-in-jamaica-after-hurricane-melissa-im-just-praying-for-everybody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/19257\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania woman cut off from family in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa: “I’m just praying for everybody”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Melissa<\/a> has left many families in Jamaica struggling to stay connected as power and communication lines remain down. One Delaware County resident is anxiously trying to reach relatives on the island.<\/p>\n

Lileith Brown<\/a>, an entrepreneur in Media, has about 30 family members in Jamaica, including her mother, siblings, and nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n

“My mom did say, she’s like, ‘They were telling the truth. This hurricane<\/a>\u00a0is really bad. It’s as bad as they said it would be,'” Brown said.<\/p>\n

Since Hurricane Melissa made landfall, Brown said her family has lost power and internet, and she hasn’t been able to reach them since their last call dropped Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

“I’m a little bit worried,” Brown said. “But I’m praying.”<\/p>\n

Despite the uncertainty, Brown said the support from the local community has given her hope. Jamaica’s Honorary Consul in Philadelphia, Christopher Chaplin, is organizing relief efforts to help those affected by the hurricane.<\/p>\n

“People have such good hearts and are looking to help any way they can,” Chaplin said. “We have a number of items that unfortunately, we couldn’t use or send to Jamaica.”<\/p>\n

Food cannot be accepted because it can spoil before it arrives. But Chaplin said donations like tarps, generators and hygiene kits are most needed. Several drop-off locations have been set up, including BESCO Shippers on Baltimore Avenue.<\/p>\n

“In terms of relief, it’s all hands on deck,” Chaplin said. “I’ve had such great support from the Jamaican diaspora. We’ve been getting calls and emails.”<\/p>\n

As Jamaica begins a long road to recovery, Brown remains hopeful she will hear from her family soon and emphasizes the resilience of her community.<\/p>\n

“I’m just praying for everybody,” Brown said.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hurricane Melissa has left many families in Jamaica struggling to stay connected as power and communication lines remain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[212,12354,12172,12353,28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-19257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-delaware-county","9":"tag-hurricane","10":"tag-hurricane-melissa","11":"tag-jamaica","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","14":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19257","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=19257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}