For the last several days Andrea Morrison, like others across south Brevard with connections to Jamaica, has watched as heartbreaking images from Hurricane Melissa’s catastrophic passage over the island nation surfaced.
Some of those images include once-bustling streets in Montego Bay, where Morrison’s family had a vacation home. The popular tourist site now sits ravaged and strewn with mangled, muddied debris from Melissa’s hellish winds.
“Our family’s vacation home in Montego Bay was destroyed. Everyone is still in shock,” said Morrison, who owns Hazel’s Caribbean Restaurant in Melbourne.
“A lot of people I know … their homes were just swept away. We also have a home in Red Hill, in Kingston, that was destroyed. It went with the wind, but everyone is OK, thank God.”
Across Brevard and Florida, home to around 300,000 Jamaicans and others who have connections to the island, residents like Morrison and private organizations are mobilizing financial and material support as the impact of the Category 5 hurricane is felt across the Caribbean.
In Palm Bay an estimated 8,000 residents of Jamaican heritage live, work or go to school, according to data from the American Community Survey.
At Hazel’s, one of the more popular Jamaican restaurants in south Brevard, Morrison serves up traditional foods like oxtails and jerk chicken some 700 miles from where she was born in Jamaica.
Over the years, the popular Stack Boulevard restaurant has been a place where people gather to talk. The walls bear artwork of the land and nearby, there’s a trove of business cards from others in the area’s Caribbean community.
Morrison, who was raised in New York, said she plans to personally donate 10 percent of her business’ food sales to helping the Jamaican recovery effort.
Though the family homes have been destroyed and towns brought to the ground by the flooding and strong winds, the people in Jamaica will “tough it out and bounce back stronger than ever,” said Morrison, who bought the business from the original owner earlier this year.
“It’s very sad to see,” she said. “But we are a resilient people. Rebuilding is what we will do.”
Palm Bay Mayor Rob Medina — whose city of 125,000 residents is dotted with more than a dozen Jamaican and Caribbean-themed restaurants along with other businesses — offered his support as the situation unfolded.
“On behalf of the City of Palm Bay, I extend my deepest condolences to the people of Jamaica following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa,” Medina said in a statement to FLORIDA TODAY.
“The loss of life and widespread damage are heartbreaking, and our thoughts and prayers are with those who are grieving and working to rebuild.”
Help pours in from diverse communities
In Brevard, Rabbi Zvi Konikov of the Chabad of the Space and Treasure Coasts worked with others to secure satellite phones and other support for the Jewish and Jamaican community in Montego Bay.
There, the community’s rabbi, Yaakov Raskin his wife and others — Jews and non-Jews alike — hunkered down in the Chabad as rainfall in the double digits dropped in the days following Torah readings about Noah and the Flood.
“We have a responsibility to every Jew and non-Jew on the island. God runs the world. Our job is to prepare as best we can and trust that He’ll do the rest,” Rabbi Raskin told Chabad.org before the storm moved in and overtook the island.
The building’s air-conditioning unit was peeled away by the strong winds buffeting the mountaintop synagogue. Roadways were blocked and power was out.
“It’s been a rough week,” said Rabbi Konikov, who is related to Rabbi Raskin by marriage. “Right now we are collecting either monetary donations or supplies. My colleagues have asked that all of the Chabads be drop-off centers. As with any natural disasters we’ll help in any way we can.”
The Brevard Caribbean American Sports and Cultural Association, an organization representing residents from the Caribbean, is reviewing ways to assist the island.
“Our brothers and sisters in Jamaica are facing unimaginable hardship in the wake of Hurricane Melissa,” the group told members this week in an email.
“BCASCA has launched a relief effort in partnership with the international group Global Enpowerment Mission, to distribute emergency supplies at its Palm Bay drop-off center at 2174 Harris Avenue from 7 p.m. to midnight.”
Other donations of supplies, from medical supplies to dried fruit, soap, sanitary products and tarps, will be taken from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Fred Poppe Regional Park Cricket Pavilion.
Launch Credit Union’s nine branches in Brevard will also serve as drop-off centers for supplies along with The Hispanic Chamber, Jam Rock Restaurant, the Palm Bay Chamber of Commerce and other locations across Palm Bay.
In Daytona Beach, the group Project Dynamo, a nonprofit led by veterans, began shuttling 4,000 pounds of relief supplies to Key West bound for Jamaica. The group has also, through donations of baby food, water purification systems and medical kits, worked to evacuate stranded Americans, Jamaicans and others hoping to return to the U.S. Just weeks before, the group was helping in Haiti.
Now, some 50 people have applied to be flown out of Jamaica, said James Judge, Project Dynamo spokesperson.
“Our primary focus right now is Jamaica,” he said.
Morrison agreed.
‘We have to do something,” she said.
“I’m willing to do what we need to do to help meet the needs.”
The Jamaican government has set up a dedicated donation website, supportjamaica.gov.jm/donate to support recovery efforts.
J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jdgallop@floridatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard residents reach out to help hurricane recovery effort in hard-hit Jamaica
Reporting by J.D. Gallop, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
