As Hurricane Melissa Makes Landfall, Jamaican New Haveners Mobilize

Jamaican American Society Members Azaria Tyler and Karaine Smith-Holness. "I don't even know how we're feeling. It's just overwhelming," Smith-Holness said. Photos Courtesy of Azaria Tyler.

Note: This article was updated with additional resources on Thursday, Oct. 30.

As Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, Karaine Smith-Holness knew that she couldn't watch it happen.

Already, she had spent time on the phone with her brother Garth Smith, who was watching the rain fall from a darkened sky in Kingston. She'd checked in with family, before so many on the island lost touch around 9:45 a.m. She knew that the impact was predicted to be severe, with punishing winds and heavy rain that made flash flooding and landslides more likely. 

So instead, she drove to a nearby U-Haul—to ask for storage space that she knew the Jamaican American Connection (JAC) would need in a matter of days. 

A proud Jamaican immigrant and business owner in Hamden, Smith-Holness is one of dozens of Connecticut residents organizing aid efforts for Jamaica, which Tuesday began to see the devastating effects of Hurricane Melissa. As the storm makes its way across the island and toward Cuba, they are thinking about how they can help, from diaper and formula donations to dry goods like rice, beans, and cereal that will stay shelf-stable for months. 

"I don't even know how we're feeling," Smith-Holness said, adding that donations will ultimately go to a port, and then on to Jamaica (JAC is working with the New York based organization American Friends of Jamaica). "It's overwhelming. [But] I'm busy and I'm out, I'm getting stuff done, collecting things, taking to people, galvanizing, relationship building."

As of Tuesday night, both JAC and the Irie Society had set up food and supply drives, as well as options to give directly through their respective websites or emergency relief platforms. Through at least the end of November, JAC has set up collection barrels at Possible Futures (318 Edgewood Ave.), the Shubert Theatre (247 College St.), and Natural Annie Essentials, which has a studio space in Bridgeport (1313 Connecticut Ave. Studio 1-1). 

Irie Society, which is the brainchild of emergency nurse Brittany Daire, is also hosting supply drives at Good Life Caribbean Cuisine (161 Chapel St.), the Trachouse Cares Foundation (39 Frontage Rd. in East Haven), and the Stetson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library (197 Dixwell Ave.). Daire said that the drives would remain open for the foreseeable future, because the island will likely need help for months.

Both Irie and JAC are asking for a wide range of supplies, including nonperishable food items, first aid kits, flashlights and batteries, cases of bottled water, blankets, and tarps. In addition, people can give to a disaster relief fund and Amazon wishlist that Irie has set up, stocked with supplies like diapers, soap, towels and toothpaste.

"We are doing what we have to do," said JAC member Azaria Tyler, who had been worrying about her 89-year-old grandfather, Sam Samuels, who lives alone in Montego Bay. Just before 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, the phone lines cut out, and communication with him became impossible. "This is a call to action. A lot of people come to Jamaica on vacation and they say, 'Oh, it's paradise.' Well, right now, paradise needs your help."

Like Tyler, many of the people who have jumped onboard to help have family in Jamaica. Daire, who grew up between Connecticut and Brooklyn, has been hoping that her 83-year-old grandfather, Ronald Daire, will make it through the storm unscathed from his home in St. Elizabeth Parish, where much of her extended family still is. In Irie, members like Emoni Smith and Rebekah Moore are also worried: Smith's grandmother and aunts are in Jamaica, and Moore's brother is currently on a trip in Cuba.

"My heart is aching right now," Daire said. She added that almost all of Irie's members and supporters have a connection to the island, from cousins and grandparents that still live there to kids that they've formed bonds with on trips back to visit. As recently as August, representatives of Irie were on the ground in St. Elizabeth’s Parish for a backpack giveaway.

Tyler, meanwhile, is praying that her grandfather and extended family members have been able to remain safe. As a first-generation Jamaican American, she's used to the distance that sometimes separates her from cousins, uncles, and elders back on the island. But when she learned that her grandfather had been unable to evacuate from his home in St. James Parish, she began to worry. He assured her that neighbors had brought over food and helped board up his home. But since this morning, she and her family have been unable to reach them. 

"For me, I am completely freaking out but I am keeping my faith," she said. She went through a mental list of loved ones, including an uncle who is on dialysis in Kingston, and family that lives in or near what have been deemed as "landslide zones" in extreme weather, like that brought on by a hurricane. "It does hit very close to home." 

In Beaver Hills, Jamaican-born New Havener Rosey Clarke said she is also working to get aid off the ground with her organization, Moved With Compassion Ministry (MWCM). Born in Kingston, Clarke came to the U.S. with her family in 1982, when she was still a girl. Despite the distance, she has remained very faithful to her Jamaican roots, visiting the island multiple times a year. Her parents, several of her siblings, cousins and grand-nieces and nephews still live there, she said. 

Because she does not have the same budget or manpower as larger organizations, which are shipping out food and supplies, she said that direct financial aid is the most helpful thing at this time. The organization, which she officially founded in 2014, currently serves community members in New Haven, West Haven, Jamaica, and West Africa.

Her plan, she said, is to donate funds directly to groups working on the island, and travel there herself to do food aid and distribution when the airport has reopened and the roads are clearer. She is hoping to fly out by November 15, she said in a phone call Thursday.

"We’re focusing on food supplies," she said, adding that it's been unnerving not to hear from family members who are still cut off from phone and internet access. "You may be in darkness, you may not have water, but people need to eat."