BOSTON — Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday and tore through the island.
Leilani Perez and her family were one of several families stuck on the island during the hurricane.
“Rooms were destroyed, ceilings on the floor, the glass in the room, and like imagine we stayed in our rooms sleeping and glass banged into the room,” said Perez.
Videos shared with Boston 25 shows just a fraction of the high winds and damage Leilani was able to capture. Leilani says she’s grateful for the resorts emergency protocol to get everyone out of their rooms and into shelter, she says no matter what she says employees remained calm.
“They don’t know if their families are okay, but at the end of the day the guests were their number one priority and they did such a great job to reassure everybody that we were going to be alive, we were going to be okay,” said Perez.
Leilani also thanks Strategic Response Partner’s Steve Slepcevic. Somehow, she connected with him on the island and says he was able to get them a connection--that’s how she was able to contact her father here at home, who later booked Leilani and her family a flight to flee the hurricane’s wrath.
Leilani says Steve is still on the island helping others in any way he can.
“Thankfully because of him, we were able to get out and a lot of people because of him were able to leave because he had that internet. Right now Jamaica still doesn’t have internet. So we would’ve all still been there, but a lot of us were able to get out just because of him,” said Perez.
Several organizations like JAMA are providing relief for the island. Boston 25 News did try to reach out to Slepcevic to see how efforts continue to look like on the island, we were unable to reach him.
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