NEGRIL , Jamaica - When Hurricane Melissa barreled toward Jamaica last week, guests at the Coco La Palm hotel in Negril braced for the worst. Unlike the all-inclusive resorts, Coco La Palm is a modest hotel on the beach, well-prepared for emergencies, and as the storm raged, guests were surprised to have power, TV, and internet - until the following day, when everything went dark.
Fort Madison’s Clark and Nannette Griffin were on their annual vacation to the island at the resort when the hurricane descended on their resort hotel.
It was Griffin’s second time vacationing through a hurricane. The last time was in 2004, more than two decades ago, when Ivan rolled through the Carribean.
Tracking the hurricane’s path on the Zoom Earth app, Griffin realized the eye was headed directly toward them. Despite the chaos, moving inland wasn’t an option. The hotel’s concrete structure offered more safety than local shelters, many of which were destroyed along with schools and hospitals in nearby Black River. Downed power lines and widespread destruction left the western side of the island without electricity, possibly until January or February, she said.
“I was tracking that on an app called Zoom Earth and it would give live updates where the eye was at,” Nannette said. “I said to Clark, ‘It’s not good, it’s headed our way.' But we were safer at the place we were at than if you tried to go to a shelter.
“It’s just not a good situation down there. All the power lines are down.”
After the storm, the devastation was clear. “It looked like a bomb went off - just destruction everywhere,” Griffin said.
“There were power lines down on the road and we were trying to drive around those. One thing I noticed, the gas stations had limited gas. For probably five blocks or longer, cars were lined up and there were police there at the gas station letting only so many cars on the lot at a time.”
The infrastructure, already fragile, was pushed to its limits.
“The whole western side of the island [is] without power and it may not get power back until January or February,” she said. “Everybody’s on generators because the power lines are down.”
Despite the disruption, the hotel’s restaurant operated on generator power, serving a limited menu and delivering food to rooms.
For Griffin, who has visited Jamaica 29 times over the past 24 years, the experience was the worst yet. “This was my worst. Yeah, it was way worse because it was a direct hit. The last one, it stayed south of the island, but it was close enough that we were actually in the eye. That was back in 2004.”
Still, she remains committed to returning, emphasizing the importance of tourism for Negril’s survival.
“They need us, they need our tourist money. That’s the only way that they survive in Negril because there’s no industry or farming. It’s all us tourists. And I say I’m not a tourist anymore, I’m a traveler,” she said.
Griffin urged support for locals, many of whom lost homes and livelihoods.
“One thing that I want to really, really stress is yes, we had a place to come back home to, but if anybody wants to help donate, I’ve got links that will help the Jamaicans directly,” she said. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help hotel staff and residents directly at https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1460769075834805&set=a.814963903748662).
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