Surviving Hurricane Melissa

An experience that is rather forgotten ....

Have you ever experienced a feeling of surrealness only to find that it is real?

Hurricane Melissa left a Message…… Hillside Veranda damaged October 28, 2025…

It has been more than one week since Melissa visited Hillside Veranda and left a nasty message. People in the surrounding areas are still missing, wandering aimlessly about and numb from disbelief at Melissa’s insidious assault on Jamaica Island. Melissa came with much prejudice, lashing the landscape with its harsh winds more than 185 to 200 miles per hour and heavy rain. It played havoc on the southwest countryside and left it in shambles. Hillside Veranda was dead center in the eye and Melissa left little to imagine and much to see.

Hillside Veranda after Melissa

The assault was slow and at times, it seemed as though the wind would go on and on forever. Coupled with the rain many structures were unable to maintain resistance. The banana trees were the first to go, their delicate balk and leaves stripped from the stinging winds and later uprooted and strown in different directions as they were forcefully expelled from the earth like vomitus. Eerie sounds was a part of the scene as if in a movie, crackling as trees are ripped to shreds, and their leaves sucked from the branches, accompanied by booming thunder and flashes of lightening. The solar water heaters on top of the roof went flying thru the sky as if on rocket boosters to land in the nearby gullies. One-thousand-gallon water holding tanks filled were pushed and pulled by the wind and burst at the seams engorged from the rainwater.

It seemed as though there was no getting away from Melissa as the winds took offence at the windows as if to say, “I am coming in”, shattering them into pieces creating guillotine weapons that swirled around the room without a definitive target. Doors are dragged from their hinges and thrown across the floor. Tables and chair are shattered and their contents strewn wet and destroyed on the floor. Mattresses were lifted and tucked neatly into spaces blocking some entry and exits where once there were doors.

What is left?

In the aftermath, still unsure if Melissa had left, the brave ventured outside to see a world much different from the one they were living in only hours before. A once green, lush and beautiful surrounding was left devoid of its previous beauty. Melissa had wiped the canvas clean and left in its place a picture of desolation. Buildings were missing, others had no roofs or doors. Trees were uprooted and those standing were stripped of their leaves, many bend over as if in disgrace.  Withered and dead. Cars were turned upside down and thrown miles from their parking spaces. Melissa’s eye came, saw and took notice of all its view. She put the “O” in omen because what is seen is not the result of what is to come.

Melissa's message

Our response

As we use to say at Hillside Veranda “stay where you are welcome”. however, we say to Melissa, “you were not welcome, and we hope you never return”. Now we have to move forward to rebuild because we are resilient.